


In which it Rains in England

by Writer_47



Series: Nurture [7]
Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:55:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26144473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writer_47/pseuds/Writer_47
Summary: #7) Follows on from 'Yacht', 'In which Gerri thinks about Age', 'In which they Holiday' 'In which Roman must make a choice' 'In which Roman finds his voice' and 'In which the Game is Played'.Chapter 3 - Sunday lunch, make-up sex and Roman growing up!
Relationships: Gerri Kellman/Roman "Romulus" Roy
Series: Nurture [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1883719
Comments: 60
Kudos: 49





	1. Chapter 1

April 1st, she hates it, she works in a place where the population is 70% male and practical jokes are part of the course anyhow. So when Frank appears in her office mid-morning red faced and flustered she is in no mood for it.

“I’m on the phone, Frank,” she mouths when he walks in, no knock, no request – holding her hand up, annoyed.

“Put the phone down.” He mouths in return, acting out the movement.

“What the fuck?” She can’t concentrate on what’s being said as he waves his hand at her, still directing her to hang up.

“I’m very sorry,” she says to the caller, “but I’ve been called into an emergency meeting, I’ll arrange a time through my assistant to continue this.”

“What’s going on?” She snaps when she ends the call. “This best not be some ridiculous –,”

“Roman’s had an accident,” he snaps, cutting her off. “In England. Logan wants you. Now.”

Her head whirls, a hundred questions at once. “He’s had… but how… He’s okay?”

Frank shrugs, already opening the door, and she bustles after him, her blood pressure rising.

“What do we know?” She whispers to him as they make their way along the corridor. “Is he in hospital?”

“I believe so, car accident or something.”

“He was driving? He never drives.” She is pushing open Logan’s office door and he and Kendall are deep in conversation which ceases immediately when she goes in.

“Ahh, Gerri, good. Look I need you to fly out to England, now, today.”

“Excuse me, erm, Frank said it was a car accident. Is Roman okay?”

“Hospitalised, knocked up from what we hear, fucking idiot that he is was speeding about some country lanes and whatever. I need you to get over there, clean it all up, put some kind of spin on it for the press. The last thing we need is more bad publicity after this fucking bullshit year.”

“Yes, I do understand all that really, but is it essential I go, Logan? I mean, this could be handled by somebody in my team, I…”

“No, I want you on it, no fuckery going on. Get over there and sort it quick and bring the stupid bastard home.”

“Alright, I was in the middle of –,”

“Gerri, go, go. What are you still doing here?” He is waving his hand at her, dismissive.

“Alright, alright…” she was flushed as she left the room and worried about Roman, nobody had given her any clear answer on what he’d actually been hospitalised for – it could have been a brain injury or a twisted ankle! And what the hell did she have to travel over for? As if she didn’t have enough to do.

It wasn’t until she was back in her apartment hastily packing a bag that it dawned on her – punishment, this was more of the punishment package. Still. Months on. Or a test. Everything was always part of some game.

She was on a flight in under two hours, her assistant had emailed her sketchy details and she spent the first hour calling around to try and find out what had actually happened.

In the middle of a phone call she retrieved her private phone, texted with one hand:

**> Are you alright?**

He never responded. She worried more.

From what she could piece together he had been out in a football player’s Lamborghini racing about and had hit some farm building. There were too many things about the story that screamed _idiot_ she didn’t know where to start. To begin with, he didn’t even know any football players, he had once stupidly bought into a team and tried to buy his way out since then. He never drove himself anywhere – she doubted he even knew how to. And besides that what the fuck was he doing in England, she thought he was in Berlin?

She landed a little after eight, it was dark and raining as she exited the plane and into the terminal for customs. There was a separate section of course for VIPs and despite the fact she was alone she still carried the Roy name in some capacity so was whisked through. And that was when the first problem appeared. No car.

There was, and had always been, a waiting car. She called Jess, nobody had booked a car, overlooked in the course of events. No hotel neither.

So there she was, for the first time in her life, stranded at an airport.

It became very obvious very quickly that somebody was testing her with this trip. She felt like shit from flying and uprooting so quickly, her back ached, she was hungry, she had no transportation. He was in Hereford County Hospital which was a two-and-a-half-hour drive away at best (she just assumed he was in London) and besides that visiting hours ended at 20:00 so she would struggle to get access to him anyway.

The entire thing was giving her a migraine.

There was a Starbucks open in the terminal and she fixed the first problem with a large coffee and a questionable chicken salad. Second problem, she needed to shower and sleep, and so she convinced one of the employees to drive her across to one of the airport hotels. It was, without doubt, the cheapest night’s sleep she’d ever had on the most uncomfortable bed known to man and there was this god-awful smell she couldn’t pinpoint. She covered the bedsheets in Chanel before she even got in and wrapped her pillow in her own nightwear.

When she woke just after five she felt even more exhausted than when she’d gone to bed. And as she dressed in the cold milky morning light she thought of all the poor people who never knew hotels beyond this standard and felt decidedly spoilt and removed from reality. Christ, when she was a child having five dollars in her birthday card was a treat. The Roy children had never known that, never known having to wait and save and work hard.

She checked her phone multiple times but there was still no reply from Roman. And he was never off his phone. Never.

But there was an email from Jess, for now, a car hire. A. Car. Hire. Like she was some fucking cretin who had time and ability to drive herself across the English countryside. Either this was some real elaborate April Fools or Logan was deliberately trying to fuck her over. If she wanted to wait they could get her car and driver by Friday afternoon; it was 5:30 on Friday morning, she wasn’t going to hang about. She told herself that was because she didn’t want to waste her time, not because of who she was heading to.

She could hardly even remember how to drive, she used to drive years ago when Baird had this romantic idea of them spending weekends out of the city. He loved it. She hated it. The girls hated her for hating it. And thus was life.

At least it was automatic. She bought two coffees for the journey, a bag of shortbread and a keep-warm tumbler with ‘I Love London’ on the side, which she intended to give to Roman as a ‘get well soon you absolute moron’ gift. It took her exactly twenty-four minutes to work out how to link her phone to the car, and by the time she’d done it half the bag of shortbread was gone. Breakfast.

She caught sight of herself in the rear-view mirror when she was reversing out of the parking space and her hair was flat and curling in at the ends, she was pale, her eyes were dark and it had started to rain.

And it rained and it rained for the entire journey.

*

“You aren’t family?” The nurse asked her for the third time.

“I represent the family. You must understand, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, but Mr Roy is not a normal patient.”

The nurse kept looking at her notes, humming under her breath and eyeing Gerri suspiciously.

“Technically visiting hours haven’t started yet.”

“I understand that,” she was trying her best not to lose her temper. “Look, I have documentation, or you can see my phone to prove who I am. I just want to pick Mr Roy up and take him home. That’s all.”

“Well, under the circumstances I suppose I could sneak you through.”

“Thank you so much,” she almost collapsed on the spot. She had been in a phone blackout zone for the last part of the drive, and in the hospital phones had to be off so she felt completely shut off for the first time in at least thirty years.

It was odd, stepping into another part of the world; in her world – in her city – things happened immediately, efficiently, it seemed elsewhere there was a much slower pace of life. Presently it was aggravating her.

Roman at least had a private room, and she was shown in, and that’s what she wasn’t prepared for. He was battered and bruised, hooked up to a monitor and his leg was broken. Why had nobody got these details to her? She covered her mouth as she gasped, it was an involuntary reaction, but as he lay there looking vulnerable and alone, all the love she felt for him flooded back and hugged every corner of her body.

She rested her bag on a chair, leant over him, her hand tenderly resting on his chest. “Roman,” she whispered, and then leant in even closer, by his face whispering to wake him. “Rome…”

He suddenly gasped and grabbed her and she squealed like a child.

“I fucking got you.”

“That’s not funny!”

“It entertained me, but then I’ve been stuck here for over two days now so…”

“That’s a real asshole thing to do,” she wants to hit him but instead folds her arms. “How you feeling?”

“Bored. You look like shit.”

“Gee thanks, the level of flattery is effective.” She’s glancing around, looking for his information chart. “Can you leave?”

“I fucking hope so. Isn’t that why you’re here, break me out?”

“I have no idea why I’m here,” she unhooks the chart from the end of his bed but the Doctor’s handwriting is typically illegible. “Seems some giant ploy to piss off Gerri. You know I had to drive here; it’s never stopped raining.”

“The roads have been flooding, fucking farmland under water, it’s been on the news. Sheep swimming for their lives.” He made some odd noise which she assumed was meant to be a sheep. She didn’t laugh.

“Why am I here, Roman?”

“I might have, accidentally you understand, had a couple of beers and then requested a quick spin in the car. On my own. You know, these country roads are fuckers, I spun it on a tight bend.”

“Yes, completely ass-hattery behaviour.”

“Well, I went through a wall.”

“Okay.”

“And into a building.”

“Some farm building I was told.”

“A farm house. Someone’s house.”

“Oh fuck.”

“Yeah. So, you’re here to like, fix it, save me – again.”

She has folded her arms again; he never takes this as a good sign. “I’ll just wave my magic wand.” She sighs. “Why were you even here?”

“I came to see ma, I thought short trip across, to be honest I’ve been going out of my mind with boredom in Berlin. They don’t need me, Dad’s ditched me out here to get ‘experience’ he says. But she’s not here anyway.”

“Caroline?”

“She’s in the Caribbean, the house is closed up for the ‘winter’.”

“It’s April.”

“Yeah. She gets back in May.”

“Sooo,” she is feeling frustrated again now, running a hand through her hair, “where have you been staying?”

“At the house, I’d only been here a few days.”

“On your own?”

“Well, there’s a couple of groundskeepers about. I think the housekeeper comes in once a week to check all is good.”

“Am I, or am I not, in the opening scenes of what turns out to be some creepy ass horror film?”

He laughed. “I like it when you’re pissed off.”

“Ohhh, you’re really going to like me for the next few days then.”

“You were worried though, weren’t you, when you came in? Admit it.”

“It was disconcerting,” she admitted, twisting her hair up and clipping it. “But I had plans this weekend, Roman. Everything cancelled. All my appointments for the next few days shifted about.”

“What plans?”

“Weekend plans?”

“Dates?”

She has no reason to tell him anything, they have no links now. Not in that sense.

“No. Not a date.”

“Good.”

She lets that rest.

“I’ll go find a Doctor, get you signed out of here. Then I guess, erm, have you seen a solicitor?”

“Yes, one came yesterday.”

“Okay, I need the name and number so I can make contact, find out what we need to do before we can fly back to New York.” She is already heading back to the door, collecting her bag on the way. “Doctor first.”

“Gerri.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad it’s you.”

“Well, we’ll see. Oh, I forgot,” she opens her bag and takes the tumbler out, placing it on the bedside cupboard. “Get well soon gift.”

He is laughing at that as she steps into the corridor and she stops, for a couple of minutes, leaning against the white walls with the smells and sounds of the hospital about her and she just stops. It has been almost twenty-four hours since Frank told her Roman had been in an accident. And now she’s here with him, and now she can start to breathe again.

*

“You’re meant to fill the coffee cup with coffee,” he is complaining to her as she’s packing up his things. “Are you listening?”

“If you don’t shut the fuck up I may very well beat you to death with your crutches.”

“That’s not kind, I’m injured.”

She scowls at him, “I’m tired, Roman, I’ve got a headache.” She glances at her phone. “Our driver is here.”

“Which is a shame, I was looking forward to you chauffeuring me about. Beck and call.”

“Because I look so very much like that kind of person.”

He shrugged, “You’re not wearing any pearls today, so…”

She absently reached to touch her chest, “I left my pearls!”

“Where?”

“In that shitty damp bloody hotel last night. Oh for fucks sake.” She opens her phone again, starts searching for a number. “I bet they’ve gone; nobody is going to have saved them.”

“Sorry. I’ll get you some more.”

“They’re different, it’s not that kind of gift.” She sighs, “The single strand, they were one of first things Baird got me.”

It was difficult for him to fully comprehend what that meant, but he could read the anguish on her face as she chewed her nail and listened to the dial tone. He had never lost anything dear and precious to him, purely because there were very few things in the world that were indeed precious to him. Except her. He thought about this as he listened to her on the phone with the hotel; if there was a fire in his apartment what would he save? Not very much. His phone. The sweater he took from his Dad. Gerri’s green dress.

He didn’t want to think about her green dress, how it was neatly folded and hidden away at the back of the bottom drawer in the cupboard on the right hand side of the bed.

“They’re going to look but…” she shrugged. “Oh god,” she brushed her hand over her face, through her hair, shaking her head. “Lost my head as well as my –” She stopped herself.

“What?”

She looks at him then, his bruised and swollen face. “Nothing. We need a wheelchair, to get you to the car.”

“I can manage on these.”

“It’s not a short trip to the car park. I’ll go sort one out.”

He watches after her, in the silence of his sterile room, the memory of her fragrance hanging in the air. Her easy way with him. She is so quick and sharp and efficient at all she does, it’s easy to forget the woman beneath that. That lovely soft caring person he would spend the rest of his days with.

He stretches for his phone, opens his texts and contacts the only person he thinks might help him. Kendall.

**_> I need you to do something for me._ **

**> Sure. Shoot.**

*

It’s not a long journey to the castle, but he is nervous at being alone with her and gabbles on about nurses not living up to the fantasy caricature image.

“They’re like you, fucking snappy. Marching about all the time, and stewed food, everything tastes stewed. No steak. No sushi. According to my research on nurses, highly extensive you understand, porn industry staple, they should all have a high sex drive and pneumatic boobs.”

She rubs at her forehead, “Roman, I swear to God.”

“I’m just saying.”

“In the last twenty-four hours I’ve had a sandwich and shortbread so forgive me for not giving a shit about you not getting sushi.”

“You’re not very sympathetic.” He says and she would respond about how it’s his own fault for being a spoilt brat and never knowing when to stop and make the right decision. But she doesn’t.

“I can’t care about plastic boobs not existing,” she mumbles.

Then his phone rings, it is Logan. He presses red.

“Why did you do that?”

“I’m not really in the mood,” he shifts slightly in his seat, trying to find a comfortable angle and she feels bad then.

“Are you in pain?”

“A little. The leg is awkward but it’s my ribs that ache.”

She opens her handbag, taking out the list of medication the nurse had thrust into her hand. “Well you’re not due any more drugs for a few hours.” She feels sorry then for being sharp, as he leans back and closes his eyes. She tilts her head towards the window, watches the countryside sail by. “So much water around,” she comments as the rain thunders down.

“The roads ahead are flooding,” the driver interrupts and she looks forward then. “We can still get through; I just want to check that’s what you want.”

“Well, I suppose. Yes. We need to stay there for the weekend.”

“We do?” Roman asks, his eyes still closed.

“Things here don’t work like they do at home, apparently we can’t do anything legally, not until Monday. So, I’m stuck with you, and your leg.”

“What will we eat?”

“Sorry?”

“There is little in the house.”

“You’ve been staying there. How…?”

“I went to the pub.”

“There’s a village store,” the driver offers again and she figures he’s never worked for someone like Roman Roy before. He’s got a broad, flat accent that she finds amusing, and he speaks openly and most of Roman’s drivers are silent robots.

“Thank you, that’d be a help.”

*

Roman is drawing on the inside pane of the back window, breathing on it and swirling nonsense patterns and then ‘Roy Cunt’ before laughing to himself and rubbing it out again. When she emerges from the store she is carrying a box and the driver jumps out to help her and her hair is curling from the rain and he draws a heart around her figure.

“Christ,” she shakes herself when she gets back into the car, “dear god I need a bath and a strong drink. I’m assuming your mother has at least that.”

“That’s one thing she’s not short of.”

“I need to call the office, do some work later.” She looks at him, he has sunk down in his seat and his head is lolling towards her. “Are you okay?”

“Did you get lobster?”

“Oddly enough no. Are you tired?”

He nods. Eyes closed. Face close to her shoulder.

“Medication.” She reaches out to touch his hair, tempted, but curls her fingers back in on themselves.

*

The kindly driver helps her get Roman inside, down the flagstone corridor where the rain drips in through the back door and into one of the smaller lounge areas. It is clear from the things left about that he has been pretty much living there anyhow.

“You sure you’d rather be here?” She asks as they get him laid on the oversized soft couch. “Not in a bedroom?”

“No way, it’s freezing in this place.”

“It is rather chilly. Did you not turn on the heating?”

But he’s already falling asleep, so she drapes a blanket over him and leaves him be.

Odd these giant old houses. Whenever she’s visited she’s usually only ever seen one side of it, the huge dining room, the grand ball room, the four-poster in her bedroom. But Caroline clearly only occupies certain rooms when she’s here on her own, which makes sense, it would be too much to keep the whole thing running continuously. The decoration in these rooms strikes her as being more like a farmhouse, mismatched pillows and bits of old junk pottery mixed in with ancient dusty artwork.

She pulls off her damp cashmere and drapes it over her arm, following the flagstones out of the lounge and into a short hallway, the farm-style kitchen jutting off from that. Outside the rain has ceased a little, and beyond she can see the grounds covered in the lace-like structure of raindrops. Birds hop about upon the grass searching for worms risen to the surface and it’s so silent. Like finding herself in a bubble.

It occurs to her that this is still part of her job and she finds her phone and calls Logan.

“Yes, we just got back. He’s asleep. I think it’s the medication.” She wanders the room listening to Logan complain about the inconvenience of it all. “It shouldn’t be too much of an issue, we’ll obviously settle with them and do some kind of positive publicity with the family, build a new house or something,” she opens cupboards until she finds coffee. “Yes, upgrade, I don’t know put in a pool or something.”

And that’s it. No real questions as to Roman’s well-being. He’s alive. He’s stupid. The call ends.

There’s an old-fashioned cafetiere, and she spoons coffee into it, and then sinks into the rocking chair by the window and cradles the mug. She finds it hard to picture Caroline here, sitting in this chair overlooking the rose garden. She finds it hard to imagine that the woman can be still and quiet for very long. But then perhaps she doesn’t know her altogether, her life beyond the events she hosts, those times when there’s nobody there and there is loneliness and a sense of finding one’s self. Time for reflection.

Tilting her head back she breathes deeply, the chair rocks, the rain patters once again upon the bay windows with the faded dusky pink curtains and the old-fashioned farm table. There’s something quaint about it, if it were her she would have up-dated, everything would be chic and shiny, but there is something quaint about the history of it all, she must admit that.

For a room clearly built to host a family it is jarring how little examples of family there actually are. No pictures. No trinkets. When her girls were young they would bring home drawings from school and misshapen pots made of clay. All would find their way either to the weekend house or, if she could get away with after a few days, the garbage. She wondered if Roman had ever brought home drawings, but then he had spent so long away at school and out of the home it seemed unlikely his parents knew much at all about his educational experience.

Momentarily she runs her finger over her phone, through her pictures, and it takes her a while until she finds one of her daughters as babies. Blair just five, Maisie a new-born, them seated together with the baby resting on her sister’s lap. She had put off having a second child in the hope Baird would change his mind. He hadn’t. And it was a disappointment on her part at the time that she hadn’t managed to give him a son, in families like his boys were still important, though it made her inwardly angry that the system had hardly moved forward in hundreds of years.

She thinks of texting, sometimes it’s easier with Maisie, but Blair can be stubborn like her, and it is months since she has really spoken to either of them. But then she can’t think what to write, because there is nothing to say. Even a brief check-in to say she was in England would seem out-of-place. It’s hard at times, being so distant. She can remember when her own mother died flying out and crying suddenly on the plane, and she never cried, even when Baird had passed away she’d kept it inside. She wonders if either of her girls would cry at her passing.

When the coffee is gone she suddenly remembers the box of food and unpacks it, placing milk and vegetables in the fridge, eggs on the side. The eggs look good and fresh, large brown ones from the local farm, and she thinks she might attempt an omelette later as its pretty much one of the few things she can make without messing up.

It is growing dark, and the rooms colder, and she searches the kitchen for a while for a thermostat but to no avail. In the lounge there is a fire and it’s clear Roman had been using that so on her knees she re-stacks it with the logs piled up on one side. It takes a while for it to light, which surprises her, she’d always assumed fires get going easily. But she’s coughing when a stream of smoke hits in the face and pushing herself up to her feet to escape it.

When she turns, Roman is awake and staring at her with wide vacant eyes.

“Hi,” she says, putting the box of matches on the coffee table. “How you doing?”

“Pretty awful.”

“I’ll go make you some coffee, or tea, if you prefer.”

“Bourbon,” he says and she rolls her eyes.

“Not with the drugs.” She moves closer to the couch, and he rolls his head back on the pillow to look up at her. “You’re pale,” she rests her hand on his forehead, it’s clammy and she can feel the corner of his stitches beneath her little finger.

“You think I’ll have a scar?”

“I shouldn’t think so,” she says, moving her hand, “could be cool though, like a gangster.”

“I’ll lie about where I got it.”

She nods, offers him a small smile, and moves away but he catches her wrist in his hand.

“Stay.”

“You should go back to sleep,” she says, but she steps back so he can see her again without moving his head. “You worried me.”

“Huh,” he mumbles, eyes fluttering closed, “You seemed more pissed off.”

“No.” She wants to touch him again. She can feel his fingers around her wrist and she moves her other hand to loosen his hold, placing his hand back beneath the blanket.

He’s already asleep again.

*

She takes a bath in one of the guest rooms, thankful there is at least hot water and her hair is now clean. For a while she wanders the corridors, but it is dark and the large windows seem like some absence and it makes her feel even colder than she is. She can easily imagine getting spooked her, as the wind and rain howl outside; she closes every door behind her on the way back to the rooms Caroline uses. She can understand now why in a castle she occupies only around five rooms most of the time.

In the kitchen she searches the drawers and finds a notebook, inside are the scribbled names of various people and on page four she locates ‘housekeeper’ and dials.

“I’m so very sorry to bother you late,” she explains, and, after a brief exchange of pleasantries follows the lady’s instructions and finds the thermostat to turn on the heating. It is a brief moment of success after a couple of days’ worth of stress.

She makes tea, carries a tray with a pot and cups and milk into the lounge and sets it down on the coffee table.

A hand to his shoulder, gently shaking.

“You need to take your next round of pills,” she explains as he drowsily stares at her. She isn’t used to seeing him ill, without energy, he’s usually the one exhausting her.

She helps him to sit, notes the grimace as he bends, hands him two tablets and a glass of water.

“I thought I might make us some food.”

“Great stuff, order out, get something spicy – Korean or… What’s that face?”

“Eggs, I’ll make us an omelette, or, I could even push to scrambled eggs if you prefer. Unless you want me to try and get your mother’s kitchen staff back in? Hire a team for the weekend?”

He doesn’t want that. He wants to be alone with her.

“You know what,” he says, taking the tea from her.

“What? What’s that face?”

“When we stayed here as kids mum used to make eggy pegs.”

“Okay.” She sank down into the cushion at the end of the sofa by his bare feet.

“I always liked them” he shrugged. “There’s a sort of comforting…” he saw her face watching him and changed tact. “It doesn’t fucking matter if not, obviously I’d prefer truffle butter of the backside of some –,”

“Roman,” she interrupted, “you don’t have to hide with me.” She sipped her tea. “I’ll make that.”

They sat in silence for a while, drinking their tea, the fire crackling.

“You think this is what it could be like if I was Lord of the Manor?” he said softly.

“You need a dog,” she said. “Surely this could be yours one day, I mean, who has your mother put down in her will? Is it shared?”

“Who knows, ma never reveals a thing.”

“I wouldn’t think you’d want it, not your thing is it? Far too quiet.”

“Maybe, but here I am drinking tea on a Friday night like some old wankstain on his way out.”

“Your way with words,” she stretched her legs out, rested her head on the back of the sofa and sighed. “Your father called.”

“Oh, what did the old buzzard have to say? Wait, let me guess, he’s a constant disappointment, not fit to run a kid’s birthday party, moron… need I go on?”

She twisted her head to look at him, “Why did you do it? You were doing so much better, Frank said…”

“I’m fucking sick of being watched by people like Frank. Like I can’t do the job myself. I’m not a kid.”

“Then why do you persist in acting like one?” She asked, her voice calm but firm. “If you want to be taken seriously then you have to be an adult 99% of the time, not fifty-fifty depending on your mood.”

“Great, that’s all I need. Your judgement too.”

“Don’t do that, you know I’m on your side, I always was.”

“Even when I fucked you over?”

Her mouth twisted and he watched the way her eyes flickered as she contemplated her answer, “Yes, even then.”

“I am sorry, you know. I know I said that once before and you didn’t accept it.”

“I did accept it.”

“No, you pretended to, and I acted like some loon-toon anyhow that night.”

“You were drunk.”

“I was unhinged, and I’m fucking embarrassed about that, okay. So, honestly, I am sorry for doing it like that.”

She looked away from him, nodding, “Ahh.”

“What now?”

She finished her tea, sat up and put her cup down. “You were sorry for doing it _like that_ , not for doing it.”

He paused at that, unsure as to how far she wanted this to go.

“I’m sorry altogether.” He finally said. “You’re the last person I’d want to hurt.”

She turned her head to look at him, “Who said I was hurt?”

He tilted his head to regard her, those wondrous large eyes opening her up. “I hurt me, then,” he admitted, “like, I really hurt me.”

She bit her lip, slid forward on the couch and got to her feet. “I don’t want to have this conversation.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll go make the food, you want to eat in here or the kitchen, or that dining table in there?”

“Not that, makes me think of fucking pigeon. Kitchen is fine.”

“I worked the heating out, so you can move to a bedroom later if you like. Maybe have a shower, can you shower with the leg?”

He shrugged, “I guess, stick one leg out. Maybe you’ll have to wash my balls for me.”

“Fuck that!”

*

She googles ‘eggy pegs’, is reminded of her poor attempts at preparing breakfasts for her children when they were away at the weekend. But she doesn’t do too badly all things considered and his egg yolks are still bright and runny when he snaps the top off of the egg. She makes herself the same and they sit at the kitchen table with two candles burning and a glass of white wine for her. Caroline may have poor decorative skills but her wine cellar is top-notch.

“You think you’d consider it?” He asks, facing her across the table.

“Consider what?”

“Here, lady of the manor?”

“You mean would I like to live in a place like this?” She shrugs. “It’s a bit draughty, and quiet, I think I’m used to the constant bustle of the city now.”

“I meant,” he sipped his water, giving himself time to think, “I meant with me.”

She breathes deeply, she doesn’t want to venture into that side of things, “Roman. Don’t do that.”

“It’s a decent place, lots of perks.”

“I don’t doubt that. That isn’t what I meant.”

“You mean no to being here with me. Because I’m a liability.”

“I don’t think that.”

“You know, I wasn’t pissing about with the car thing, I mean yes okay granted I was going too fast but I didn’t know the road, I wasn’t over the limit and I really liked the car, I was gonna buy it off the guy.”

“Well, in a way you have now,” she shrugged, picking up her glass of wine. “Paid him for it at least. And you don’t need to explain it to me, we’ll fix things, we go home.”

“I want to fix things.”

He is pushing.

She circles the rim of her glass with her thumb, “There’s nothing to fix. It’s fine now, really. Life has moved on; it’s been nearly five months.”

“Four months, six days.”

“Roman, I…” she is surprised by this, it makes her heart thud. She had spent so long convincing herself he didn’t really care all that much, that life moved on for Roman Roy – even that weekend away in Malibu and that awful night where he’d clawed at her, she told herself it was drink, some mis-placed guilt. Not genuine care.

“You never said anything about the flowers.”

She paused then, breathing deeply, trying to breathe. “There was nothing to say. Besides I did, I told you not to send anymore. And was I really sure they were from you?”

“You knew they were from me,” he stated firmly. “You knew.”

She nodded slowly, “Yes, I knew.”

“Why not, I don’t know, respond?”

“What was I meant to say?”

“I meant that card. Respond to the card.”

She thought of where it was still sitting in her bedside drawer.

“Why are you doing this? Nothing has changed.”

“It has.” He reached his hand across the table, his fingers so close to hers. “I’ve changed, you changed me.”

“No Roman, nothing has changed. You walked away because your father told you to, and if he asked again you’d do it again.”

“Gerri –,”

“I don’t want to have this conversation. Please. Let’s just,” she tapped her hands on the table, “let’s just get on and… I don’t want to argue.”

“Neither do I.”

“Okay, good. So…” she pushed her chair back, got to her feet. “I’ll help you up to the shower and then do the dishes.”

“I missed you,” he said, staring at her face as she collected their plates, the way her hair fell in sheets of golden blonde over her face.

“Yes. I missed you too.”


	2. Chapter 2

**_'And you know damn well, for you i would ruin myself, a million little times'_ **

* * *

Gerri sleeps late the next morning, it is the buzzing of her phone which wakes her and she lies for a while listening to the sound without fully focussing on what it is. And then reality dawns and she makes a grab for it and tries to sit up and wake whilst half-listening to Karolina. It isn’t like her to have overslept, something Karolina also notes, and she blames it on the stress of the day, the weather, the rushed travel.

Things seem to have stepped up a pace now and the team have swung into action, by the time Monday comes she should be able to walk into a police station, have Roman sign some forms and move forward.

They will meet with the owners of the farm in the afternoon and hopefully be on a flight home come evening. How quickly money can make things disappear.

Tuesday she will be back in New York. Back in her own bed.

Her heart feels heavy as she brushes her teeth, she keeps thinking of Roman in the hospital bed, of Frank saying the word ‘accident’ as if it’s on loop in her head and she hasn’t moved on from that moment, those seconds of shock. She can’t quite work out how she missed that the day before, that actually she was panicked, though she had always been very good at swinging into action in a crisis – it was no doubt what had kept her in this position for the past twenty years.

He could have died.

That alone brings some misshapen lump to her throat that she can’t swallow away. That there could be a world without him in it, or that he might die never knowing how she feels or with ill-feeling between them.

It is a stark realisation, to remember all over again that she loves him and for him to be gone would be agony, whether she is in a relationship with him or not. Indulging in her feelings seems a liberty she can’t take, they are always there, just suppressed, just like a base layer, like breathing, you do it without thinking. Besides, she’s afraid if she really allowed herself to fall back and bathe in them, they would overflow and she is far too stoic a person to allow that; she fears that.

She dresses. Goes down to make coffee. In the kitchen she can hear Roman talking in the other room and assumes he is on a call so leaves him be as she prepares breakfast – yoghurt, fruit, granola. He’ll complain but eat it anyway.

She is standing in the bay window overlooking part of the side garden when he comes in, hobbles in, crutches scratching the floor.

“Good morning,” she says, “you look much better, more yourself.”

“Thanks. I think my body was a bit wiped out by the medication yesterday, which is odd,” he slips onto a chair, “given the amount of shit I put into it myself in my twenties.”

That earns him a lopsided grin from her, “Coffee?”

“Yes. Please.”

“Who was on the phone?”

“Erm, my therapist actually.”

“Oh? Sorry. I didn’t realise, didn’t mean to be nosy.” She is fussing with the coffee, with putting his breakfast in front of him.

“No, it doesn’t matter. I’ll tell you anything. We talk regularly now,” he shrugs. “It’s good, getting better.”

“I’m glad about that.” She sits across from him, opposite sides from the previous evening. “Would you mind if I take a walk this morning, whilst the rain has ceased?”

“Course not,” he shovels a mouthful of yoghurt and granola into his mouth, “not your fucking keeper. Wish I could come but I can hobble at snail’s pace at the moment.”

“You’ll get better. How long’s it gonna be, the leg?”

“Seven weeks average, I’ll see a specialist when we get home. I think it’s already been sorted for me.”

She nods, “You will try harder, won’t you, to take care of yourself I mean.”

“If that’s what you want.”

She ignores the jab and continues eating.

“I wondered if you could set me up in here,” he says, drinking his coffee as if it’s the best thing he’s ever tasted.

“Set you up…?”

“Yeah, might seem a stretch but I thought I might do some work. I’m bored as shit; I’ve been laying in that room for over two hours.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

He shrugged, “You were sleeping. You never sleep. Like even on vacation you’re up and out on the deck reading or some shit. I thought you found it physically incapable to turn off.”

She smiled at that, “Maybe. Yesterday was… disconcerting,” she settled on.

“Yeah. You said that in the hospital. So, a laptop and things would be good. Ma at least has wifi now, we went for a good few years without where she refused the upgrade. And the signal still drops at times.”

“I noticed when we were here for Shiv’s wedding.”

“Christ that seems an eternity ago, I can’t believe they lasted this long.”

“No comment,” she refilled their coffee, sat back as she sipped hers. “Marriage is a funny business, no one is the same and no one can be compared.”

“But you fancied doing it again, right?”

She forgot she’d told him that.

“I must’ve been drunk when I said that.”

“Changed your mind?”

“Hm,” she turned her face to the window, remembering the lacklustre date she’d gone on and how there had been none since. Perhaps she had underestimated how long she needed to get over him – this idiot child sitting in front of her.

“Seems to me it’s all sweetness and light when it starts, marriage, like this person is fucking perfect to you. Then the wedding ring goes on and they aren’t so hunky-dory any more.”

“Maybe that’s the mistake people make when they get married, expecting perfection. Nobody’s perfect.”

“I don’t know, you’re pretty damn close.”

She laughed, “Fuck off. I’m not awake enough for quick-retort sarcasm.”

“I wasn’t being sarcastic.”

“There are plenty of things about me which lack perfection.”

“You could go to town on me, like we could be sitting here for the next twelve hours and you could list my faults and not one of them would surprise me.”

She toyed with her spoon on the table to avoid looking at him; strange how that had shifted somewhat, that dynamic between him – he used to be so nervous and fidgety when around her he’d touch and play with whatever was there to avoid really making eye-contact. Now he was looking directly at her, pushing, probing.

“I’m sure you could find plenty to fault about me.” She said softly. “My lack of care, for a start, I’d throw anyone over the side if it meant saving Waystar, or myself.”

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t see that as a fault. Just survival. I was thinking smaller things, like the fact I always clamber on furniture, and don’t tell me that doesn’t annoy you because I saw your face on several occasions when I hopped over the back of your couch.”

She glanced away again, a small smile, but the point was that for both of them that stirred up the memory that at some point he was not only in her home but he was comfortable enough to be clambering on her furniture like some restless child.

“Sometimes you’re a bit like a puppy that needs to be kept in check,” she said. “Trained. Taken on daily walks.”

“Yeah,” he nodded, “but you were always good at that. Never seemed to rile you, even when I was really, _really_ trying to piss you off. That could be a fault, you don’t easily get pissed off. You just ride it out like it doesn’t touch you. Like you don’t feel it, don’t have feelings –,”

He stopped at that, realising what he’d said.

She stared at him across the table.

Did he truly think she didn’t feel?

There was this awkwardness there, some untouched box in the middle of the table between them which neither dared open. Had he ever directly told her how he felt about her? No. Had she ever directly told him how she felt about him? No. Was it there, suggested, hidden in looks and touches and time spent. He thought he’d made it clear – the gifts, the attention, the texts. Maybe he hadn’t. And she could be hard to read at times, knowing what she wanted could be difficult to judge, especially for someone as emotionally stunted as he was.

He wished things could be easy again, on that yacht, on the day he kissed her, it seemed easy. He suddenly felt very tired and longed to rest his head in her lap and sleep.

“Sorry,” he said softly, and his leg itched inside the pot.

“Well, don’t forget to take your pills,” she said, pointing out where they lay on the table. “I’ll clear these things away and go find your laptop. Do you want to stay in here and work?”

“Sure,” he felt an idiot now, they had been getting on well. “It’s lighter than the lounge.”

There was little conversation then, she turned on the radio which sat on the side, made a fresh pot of coffee for him and helped him set up to work.

*

The sky was still lightly skimmed with grey clouds and she suspected it would rain again later so she took the opportunity to get out before it did. The gentry were always prepared for visitors and she found a pair of boots in the boot room that fit and headed out, her phone tucked into her jacket pocket just in case.

There had been a pain in her chest since breakfast, this worrying niggling worm-like thing which bothered her – and she wanted to exhaust it, to walk it off and kill it. So she left the garden, down the drive, pounded up the side of a damp hill, her hair blowing in the wind, feet slipping in the dirt.

He thought she didn’t feel.

It wasn’t just him, of course, him saying those words, she was well aware this was something that had formed a silver thread throughout her entire life. Crying silently on a plane over her mother but never telling her she loved her prior to her death was just one example. Finding it so very difficult to hold her daughters as children, to just sit with them on her lap and hold them, sing lullabies or offer comfort. It wasn’t part of her DNA. It was what enabled her to do her job, not to feel, not to care; it was the same thing that enabled her to sleep with someone she wasn’t at all attracted to.

And then him, and being able to sit and run her fingers through his hair whilst he was lying on her. Not minding how he put his head in her lap or waking to find his head on her belly. Holding his body so gently when his face was pressed against her stomach, and his fingers digging into her hips. She could still feel that, a year on and this ghost-like memory of his fingers in her flesh as he clung to her for some kind of hope. As if she’d never been held before.

Could she admit he’d broken her heart? Yes, quite easily. But she had never told him that, just as she had never told him she loved him. It was something of a weakness to do that. To admit it. She had rarely told Baird and she had trusted him implicitly throughout their marriage, all those gentle steady years together. Roman had never had that; he couldn’t begin to understand that. It wasn’t the kind of dramatic, passionate love that people write about, it was just solid. But then Baird had never opened her up in the way Roman had, he had never made her messy and feel unkempt, she had never risked everything for him the way she had for Roman.

The undoing of her perfectly styled life. The possible loss of reputation and career.

And yet, even now, standing in the drizzle looking down at that long-standing castle, she knew she would do it all over again.

*

When Kendall rings Roman is drafting an apology to the family whose house he had damaged. There had been one sent through already of course, corporate bullshitting, but for the first time he felt like he should write it himself.

“How’s the leg?” Kendall asks, and he sounds brighter than he has in a while.

“Fucking agony yesterday, but easing today, just annoying you know. Can’t move.”

“That really is torture for you. Noticed you’d sent a few emails – you’re working?”

“Miracle right.” He flicked off of the screen on his laptop, clicked on his photos, to the private folder where he needed to type in his code to unlock it. “How’s things there?”

“Same, maybe quieter without you.” He paused for a moment. “How’s Gerri?”

“Out for a walk, think she’s going stir crazy stuck here. No movement until Monday so we’re just… hunkering down as Dad would say.”

“Well, some good news on what you asked for. We got them.”

He perked up at that, “You did?”

“Yeah, tracked down, didn’t take much really, so they’re in the safe at the bank. I can get someone to meet you at the airport before you fly out.”

“Oh man that’d be great, thanks, thank you for doing that.”

He was sure he heard Kendall smile.

“What?” He said.

“Just, lot of effort, you know. For her. You sure this thing is over?”

“With Gerri, you think we’re fucking here? I wish.” He was flicking through his photos of her, the ones from their holiday where she always looked so relaxed, glowing and happy.

“I was thinking more… look man I messed up my marriage.”

He heard Kendall cough, take a drink, time to pause and think.

“I know we don’t do this shit, talk about… but I regret it. I fucking loved Rava, I miss her, and the kids. Don’t regret it, that’s all, you know.”

He heard the back door open and quickly closed the file he was looking at, shuffling his phone in the other hand.

“I hear you,” he said.

“Dad won’t be around forever,” Kendall said and there were too many things about that statement that Roman needed to explore but couldn’t. One focus at a time.

“I gotta go,” he said, “I’ll text, but thanks, it’s real good of you.”

When she came into the kitchen her face was flushed from the walk and her hair sprinkled with silver raindrops.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, working like a workhouse whore bent over the table all the day through, just, ready to take it, you know.” He slammed his fist into the palm of his other hand.

“I see,” she nodded calmly. “So, does the whore want a cup of tea?”

“Fuck you know how to turn a guy on.” He leant back in his chair, stretching his arms above his head. “Good walk?”

“It’s very beautiful out there, I haven’t come here and walked in years. Whenever I’m here it’s work related, even that wedding, running around like a fucking idiot all night.”

“You love it. The drama.”

“I suppose I do.”

“So, got some good news.”

She turned to face him, leaning back against the aga, arms folded. “Oh?”

“Tracked down your pearls.”

She felt her pulse quicken, “What?”

“Yeah, Kendall got someone on it for me. Cleaner had found them or whatever, can’t blame her really, they’re paid peanuts. Made an exchange, someone is gonna meet us at the airport with them.”

“Oh goodness, Roman.”

“It’s no big deal, they seemed important to you is all. I’m not so dumb I can’t get that, the Baird link, I get how important he is to you.” He looked back at his screen, because it felt raw looking at her.

“Thank you, I mean that.” There was more to say, she should have said more, but he was tapping on his laptop again and besides she felt a little emotional and she was damned if she was going to cry over a string of pearls right there in his mother’s kitchen.

“Shall I make sandwiches?” She said. “I know it’s not luxury but the walk has made me hungry.”

“Sure. Be good.”

*

They fell into an easy pattern in the afternoon. He on one side of the table working, her on the other. The odd phone call. The odd comment between them but otherwise it was almost like being in the office, apart from Roman said the word ‘cunt’ more often than her assistant, it made her smile, every time he came up against something which annoyed him or posed a slight problem and he’d kick off for a minute or two and then calm and readdress it.

“I’m fucking sociopathic.” He says late afternoon.

“Hmm, I’ve always thought so, yes.”

“Very funny.”

“Alright, I’ll bite,” she looked up from her screen, slipped her glasses off and rubbed her nose. “Why sociopathic?”

“I’ve fucking worked all day. Like a full day’s work. I’ve earned my wages.”

“Good for you. Gold star.”

“I like it when you praise, teacher bitch vibe. You read my apology?”

“I’m literally sitting across from you and you emailed it.” She rolled her eyes at him. “But yes, I read it.”

“Yeah, and… come on, don’t leave me fucking hanging.”

“It’s good, genuine. You want me with you when you meet this family on Monday.”

“Er does a bear shit in the woods, yeah, cause, you’re like the attractive face of this whole operation.”

“Oh Christ, we’re in stormy seas then.” She pushed her chair back, got up and went to the window. It was already going dark out and it had been raining for hours again. “I might stop, go soak in the bath – you know your mother has the most amazing old-fashioned bathtubs.”

“Yeah, I know.” He wanted to make some filthy comment about being in there with her, slipping up against her, inside her, but didn’t, he guessed that was a development of sorts, a ‘growing up’.

“Read my book, have a glass of wine.” She said, watching as he yawned, stretched again, awkwardly tried to move his leg. “You should take a nap, you haven’t today. You’re still recovering.”

“Aw, that’s sweet, you care.”

“I just don’t want you to die on my watch,” she said, moving to help him up.

She settled him on the couch, left him playing on his phone and cleared away their makeshift office. It suddenly occurred to her she was glad they were alone, for the first time during the trip she was glad there were no assistants, no Caroline fussing, no role she had to play. She had worried it might make things more difficult, but it didn’t, it made them easier. But then they had always worked when it was just the two of them involved.

*

He slept for a couple of hours; she had restacked the fire and when he woke he lay there enjoying the sound of it, the warmth.

His phone was on his chest and he turned it over and found her name. Her message from two days ago still sat there: _Are you alright?_ He smiled at that; at the fact he had bothered to put her picture into the contacts so her glorious face was looking at him as he typed. With everyone else he had spent a boring afternoon once editing their details with cartoon pictures: Spongebob for Kendall, Vadar for his Dad. She was one of the few that actually had a real picture.

**> Where are you?**

In the other room he hears the scrape of a chair, the sound of her footsteps on the flagstone floor as she comes down the hall to him.

“Like being a maid,” she says as she comes in. “I should’ve left a bell.”

“Hi,” he looks up at her, better in the flesh than in the picture.

“You rang, sir.”

“Good bath?”

“Very nice, thank you. Good nap?”

“Sufficient,” he shuffled to sit up, using his arms to push himself, she helped, then sat on the coffee table. “We eating tonight?”

“I will try and cook something, yes.”

He pulled a face.

“What? What’s that look.”

“Just, god, can we have some real food?”

“Thanks very much, I’ve been preparing you real food.”

“Yeah, I know, not like that, I mean. Like. There must be a take-away or something nearby. I know we’re in the back end of beyond someone’s arsehole but come on…”

“If you can find one that will deliver then we can have it. But I thought I was doing alright, cooking, in a fashion.”

“Yeah, you’re a regular Ina Garten.”

She was surprised he even knew who she was. She waited whilst he tapped away on his phone.

“That could be a fault, I can’t cook.” She observed.

“Neither can I. And I never wanted you for that.” He said quickly. “Here, okay, village Chinese takeaway. Can order online,” he pulled a face, “delivery… I’ll ring. Offer them more money to deliver to the castle on the hill. What do you want?”

“You pick,” she said, getting up, “you know what I like.”

He felt a kind of bond about that, he did know what she’d like, and she trusted him to do so. It was a silly thing, but he liked it nevertheless.

When they were sitting at the kitchen table again with far too many containers set out between them she recognised the quaintness of it – sure, Roman had just paid the delivery driver an extra £100 to deliver, but other than that they were two people sharing takeaway food on a rainy Saturday evening.

“We’ll be playing board games next,” she observed. “Setting up Monopoly, like sad bastards.” She handed him a plate, got spoons from a drawer.

“I’d fucking win, I’m bad ass at that.”

“You probably cheat.”

“I can work the system.”

She sat down, “So can I.”

“And that’s why we make a good team.” He was spooning noodles onto his plate.

“Long as you’re better at it than you are at pool. Did you practise?”

He licked sauce from his finger, “You know,” he tried to laugh it off, “it’s still got the plastic on. I never…” he shrugged.

“Oh. That’s a shame. You should start, you bought it for a reason.”

“I bought it to fuck you on,” he said bluntly, “the pool side of it was just like a mini distraction.”

She should have been embarrassed by that, but she wasn’t, nothing he said embarrassed her these days.

“I was looking forward to you gloating over Tom.” She took a mouthful of food and moaned, “Oh my god, you’re right, _real food_.”

“See. Overly salted, highly flavoured food.”

“God bless this place. I’m glad you paid about fifty times over the actual cost for this now.”

“I’m going to hide the menu they’ve sent in one of ma’s drawers, she’ll hate that.”

“She might use it, or he might, Rory.”

“I don’t think he eats, just inhales stuff.”

She smirked at that, “Yes, but look at what she got in return.”

“A fucking giant castle. You know, you can have a glass of wine you know, I won’t mind. Sucking on my water over here.”

“Thank Christ, I didn’t want to be cruel,” she was up within seconds, opening a bottle of white that was in the fridge and pouring a large glass. “I think I might have an issue.”

“Don’t we all.” He was feeling more himself now, the painkillers were in his system, he was alert, he was eating. “So, you got any plans for this summer?”

“It’s April,” she said, retaking her seat.

“Just, you know, making conversation.”

“You think we’ve reached a point where we’ve run out of things to say to each other?”

“No, just, careful things, things I need to steer clear of.”

“Oh, please don’t censor yourself, it’d be like cutting your dick off or something.”

He laughed at that, “Because my power is in my dick. My source of imaginative one-liners.”

“Let’s avoid the word ‘dick’ again for the rest of the night, huh.”

“Sure. You brought it up though I might point out, but I’ve got a catalogue of terms I could use instead.”

She sipped her wine, “Maybe just steer clear of that whole area then, the genital area. No, not plans for the summer yet.” She added sweetly and he really laughed then, because her tone was playful and wonderful.

“Can I ask a question?”

“You always do.”

“That voice, you use that voice on anyone else?”

“What voice?” She shook her head, “You make out I’m doing something strange.”

“Not strange, fucking amazing. And don’t make out like you don’t know, it’s that soft teasing I’m coming to slide into your DMs voice. Gonna take you from behind and make you come on the –,”

“Roman…”

“Alright. But really, tell me you don’t use that voice with anyone else.”

She raised her eyebrows, lips twisting to one side, “Stop flirting with me.”

“Ah, too hard to stop, it’s too natural.”

“How about cards?” She jumped in. “Surely your mother has a pack of cards, we can do that after dinner.”

“Strip poker?”

“I said stop,” her tone was more serious now, “please.”

“Alright,” he nodded, maybe he’d pushed it as far as he could tonight. But it was there, the chip in her armour, he just needed to keep chipping.

*

They sat on the floor of the lounge, in front of the fire, cushions stacked up so Roman could lean against the couch and keep his damned awkward leg straight. She was on her third glass of wine and there were candles burning on the mantle and if it wasn’t for the fact this was an entirely awkward thing – taking care of your injured ex – she could have found the romance in it.

“You’re not cheating, are you,” she asked, glancing over the top of her glasses at him.

“Would I do that to you? Would I fuck. Now come on, lay a card down before my arm is as frozen as my ass.”

“You want another cushion to sit on?” She glances around looking for one.

“Just play the card, Gerri. I know the distraction technique well.”

She looked down at her cards again, smirking.

“Hmm hmm hmm,” she drummed her nails against the coffee table.

“Fuck me, fucking queen of misdirection. What we got riding on this?”

“I believe we’re up to $500, but if you throw the pool table in…”

“You can have the fucking pool table free of change if you just Play. A. Card.”

She giggled now and he’d missed that sound. “Manipulative bitch.”

“Hey, what? How?”

“I know what you’re doing, stop it.”

“Oh alright,” she laid her card down on the coffee table. “There.”

“Right,” he glanced at what he had in his hand. “Okay, so fuck that,” and threw his cards down, “fold.”

“Ah don’t do that; I want to win fair and square.”

“She says! After dragging the move out for the last ten minutes.”

She gathered the cards together, “I’m older, it takes my brain longer to process the information.”

“Bullshit, you’re smarter than everyone in the room at every event.”

“Why thank you.”

“It’s true.” He watched silently as she shuffled the cards, rubbing his hand over his pot.

“You alright?”

“Itches like a motherfucker to be honest.”

“What do they use, knitting needles?”

“To do what?”

“Scratch, of course, like – slide it down there, and scratch.” She made the move with her hand which made him snort with laughter.

“Do that sliding thing again.”

“Fuck off. Am I dealing or you lost enough?”

“Let’s up the stakes.”

“Go on, but nothing over 3 mill, okay. I’m not in your league.”

“I wasn’t thinking money,” he said, trying his best to keep his voice steady.

“Oh? That makes me nervous.”

“Yeah. Makes me fucking nervous too.” He could feel his pulse in his neck, his skin prickling with apprehension – it used to be a new sensation, until Gerri and the wave of feelings she’d bloomed within him.

She set the cards down on the coffee table, curling her legs beneath her, as if it gave her more distance from him. More space.

“You once told me…” he says cautiously, eyes warm from staring at the fire, the ache in his leg dull compared to the one in his heart. “…that all you got from this was me.”

She lifts her chin, can recall the moment, in her cabin on the yacht and he’d just kissed her for the first time. It had started long before that, the draw between them, back in Tokyo in a restaurant with too much alcohol and banter and laughter. But that was the closest she’d got to a perfect moment – that kiss.

“Nobody had ever made me feel like that, like it didn’t matter what my family name was or how I was useful to the company. Just me.”

Perhaps it was the wine or the firelight, but she found she didn’t want to back away or end the conversation. “I meant it,” her voice was soft, she shifted her legs, cramping already beneath her from sitting in that position.

“It made me feel… like I mattered. Like it mattered I was alive.”

“Of course it matters.” She breathed deeply, watching his face. “You made me feel alive,” she admitted, “I hadn’t felt that way for a very long time.”

“Past tense?” He noted.

She twisted her mouth, “Present tense.”

He smiled at that, “Being with you is like opening up, having to admit all the fucking awful things about myself I wish I could erase.”

“I don’t want you to change for me.”

“No, but I want to be better for you.”

“You’ve never spoken like this, it’s…” she was threading her fingers into the rug they sat on, a distraction technique.

“You mean talking like an adult?” He smirked, “It’s not my natural state believe me. But you were right when you said something changed – what happened in Turkey made me face up to a few things, and you, my feelings for you.” He paused. “It was the first time I’d really made a connection with another human being.”

That made her feel intensely sad, almost forty years of being on the outskirts of humanity.

“You know what my parents are like, there wasn’t an abundance of hugs and kisses in the house as kids, it was fuck or be fucked. I’m not saying I want the bullshit of the Brady Bunch, just an observation. I shared things with you, felt close to you, I feel closer to you than anyone ever in my life. And it’s painful, not having that anymore, not having you to talk to.”

“You can always talk to me.” She sighed, “I missed your texts, can you believe that. Those stupid disgusting things you’d send me that would pop up at inopportune moments, the middle of some serious bloody meeting and you send me something ridiculous.”

They were both chuckling at the memory of it.

“It all got a bit serious though, didn’t it?” He said. “I keep questioning myself, did I go too fast, too far, too deep. It wouldn’t have hurt so much if I hadn’t.”

“I can’t answer that. Did I know we were moving beyond just sex and fun dates? Yes, of course I did. Those last couple of weekends were… well, it felt like we were actually in something then, together, a relationship. I told you from the start it would be messy.” She stretched again, “I need to go get some more wine.” She needed a moment, a pause, to collect herself, prepare herself for whatever he might say. Despite the size of the building they were in, there was little room for hiding from him.

He held her arm as she got up, helping her balance, and watched as she padded barefoot out into the cool hallway, down to the kitchen, the opening of the fridge, wine being poured, and then back to him. The dress she wore skimmed her ankles and clung at her hips and she looked so soft and feminine it made him want to curl up beside her and sleep forever.

“I have a lot of regrets about things Gerri, the way I handled things.” He says as she sits down again.

“Oh, you shouldn’t, I don’t want that. I have very few regrets about it. About the way it ended yes, but the rest of it,” she can’t help but smile, “it was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life.”

“It was.” His eyes feel heavy, that feeling he got in his therapist’s office, and he doesn’t want to cry in front of her. “It is. I feel like I’ll always be yours.” He admits, and it’s difficult for him to do so, because it makes him vulnerable, she has the power to cut him down – but his trust in her is absolute.

“Don’t say that, I don’t want that neither.” She reaches for his hand then, resting her fingers on the back of his, because not touching him seems like some form of torture. “I don’t want that for you, I want you to move on, find someone who can give you all those things a man of your age should have. Your own family. You don’t have to be your father, Roman, you do it your way.”

“I don’t want that.” He turns his hand over, folds his fingers over hers. “I just want to be with you. I don’t care if we never go back. If we fuck them all over and disappear somewhere.”

“You do care. You would, in time.”

“None of it seems to matter as much anymore. I mean, forget the drinking stupidly period, even after that, after Malibu, I was trying to get back on track, I think I had. Was working hard, coming up with new ideas, training, even fucking listening to Frank!”

She smiled warmly.

“But there was something missing, like being numb to it all. I’ve never missed anyone so much. For a start I’ve never had a fucking friend, you were my friend first, I think.”

“I was.” She agreed.

“Well, first real break up, loss of friendship, whatever.”

“But I needed space too,” she said, “you must realise that. It really hurt, what you did, and more than that I felt like some fucking idiot.”

“I know, I know. I understand that now, I was so caught up in me, I know I’m always so caught up in me that I miss things. I don’t want to be that selfish fuck, Gerri, not with you anyhow.”

She can’t help but be amused at how he tries to sort things in his head, because nothing will ever be straightforward or easy with him, ever, but he tries so hard and deep down he can be such a sweet soul. More so than she.

“I had never thought about your role in the company, about how hard it might be for you as a woman and I’m sorry about that. I’m short-sighted and arrogant, I know. I jump in feet first without thinking.”

“But I like all those things,” she said, “it’s what makes you who you are. I enjoy it all, the off-hand insults, the indignant behaviour. I wish I could be more like it. But I don’t have the freedoms you do.”

“You’re better than me.”

“No, I’m not. And that’s something, you can’t have me on a pedestal, this infatuation, worship thing.”

“There’s nothing wrong with a little infatuation.” He teases. “I like our games.”

“I like them too.” She admits timidly.

“I like how we can move from playing them to talking to teasing to making love in one evening and it doesn’t matter because it’s all balanced and fair and we seem to have enough respect for each other that it works.”

“You do realise that respect and trust are the cornerstones of any successful partnership, workwise or private. You’ve been taught that, right?”

“I think I saw it on the front of a card once, to be honest.”

She smothers her laughter.

“You still trust me?” He asks more seriously.

“I’m not sure. Perhaps.”

“I’ve gone over it a million times, what I should have said to him, how I could have argued the point. And then I think maybe we should have kept it secret, like we were… but I don’t want that. I want to be open with you, I’m not ashamed of it, I never was. The age difference, the roles, the apparent dissonance between my cunt like behaviour and your no-nonsense focused approach.”

“Ah but you know that’s not entirely the truth now though,” she stretched again, back aching, and laid back, plumping the cushions behind her and leaning against an armchair.

“This is true, beneath the calm exterior is someone with a wicked sense of humour. And a pretty sexy dancer, if we’re being fucking honest.”

She smirked again, “Not so sure about that.”

She looked like heaven, lying there with the firelight on her face, the gold-orange dancing in her hair, over her body.

“I appreciated it all, I don’t think I ever told you.” He said. “How you opened up to me, shared things.”

“Well, I appreciated that you listened.” The warmth of the fire was making her tired.

“I don’t do it, telling people the stuff that’s in my head, or my heart, but that’s something else I want to work on.”

“You didn’t always need to say it with words,” she said. “I knew. A lot of the time I knew. And I understand why you ended it, even if I don’t appreciate the method, I know you love your father, Roman, whatever he does or you do, you’ll always come back to that. You love him. You want to please him.”

His throat felt tight, like he was on the edge of something immense and terrifying and he had this god awful decision to make and he didn’t know where it would lead or who would catch him if he fell because this power she had over him right now was so consuming – like his soul was right there for her to crush and destroy.

But in the end there is only one choice really, when faced with it, when looking down at her.

“If I’d died in that accident –,” he starts.

“God, don’t say that. That’s an awful thing to say.”

“Hear me out here because I need to say something and if you interrupt I’ll lose what’s in my head.”

She is silenced by the tone in his voice, it doesn’t sound like Roman, or maybe it sounds like who Roman might be in twenty years.

“If I’d died there’d be much press and obituaries and some analysis of a piss-poor playboy lifestyle. And you know what I thought lying in that car waiting to be cut out, I thought of you.”

Her throat closes tight. Goosebumps on her skin. She hadn’t allowed herself to picture the scene of him being trapped in tangled metal.

“That at my funeral you might cry, and you’d be the only one to genuinely mean it, and you’d be the only person in the whole fucking world who really knows who I am. Really knows. And you might miss me.”

Her mouth is open because she can’t breathe through her nose, and the tears are right there waiting.

“And I thought what a waste of a fucking life, you know, all this money, all this privilege and I’ve done nothing of significance. Nothing of real merit. Except for the time I’ve spent with you. Those weeks on that beach with you the realest experience of my useless life.”

She sat up, because otherwise she’d choke, and as she did the tears spilled down her cheeks, her hand moving to rest on his knee.

“I love you.” He shrugged, that ridiculous boyish grin he has, the unruly hair falling over his forehead. “I’m so in love with you I can’t think straight. And I can’t imagine dying and not having spent my life with you, in whatever fashion you want, because I’d do it, however you wanted, whatever you wanted.”

“Stop,” she manages to say, moving to her knees, moving closer to him, fingers coming to touch his mouth.

She is tentative, face wet with tears, his hands helpless and shaking as they come to her back, holding her as if she’s some sacred fragile being he needs to hold together as a part of his body. Trembling lips as they hesitantly touch, she can hardly breathe, hardly feel herself but he is firm beneath her, her hands on his face, his holding her body as they sink into the kiss. Like coming home again. A first sail after a storm. The first kiss after months of anguish.

She is smiling against his mouth now, and her eyes are bright and flash with tears when he opens his to look at her. He moves a hand, smooths his thumb over her cheek.

“Never loved anyone,” he admits, but she already knew that. She’d always known that.

“I love you too,” the words had been locked away for so long, tangled up, barricaded and gagged that saying them makes her feel almost giddy.

“Fuck having a broken leg right now,” he suddenly says, and she looks down at it stuck out between them and starts to laugh, falling against him as it fills her lungs.

“Oh god I missed you,” she mumbles against his chest, half laughing, somewhat crying. “You made me cry,” she said, looking up to his face. “I don’t do that.”

“There’s plenty of fucking things I don’t do, that speech for a start.”

“Mm, did you work hard on it?”

“It’s about four months in the planning. Pieced it together like a jigsaw.”

She wants to laugh again, moves to kiss him again, but it’s more certain this time, the shaking replaced with firmness and that deep-rooted passion that has grown between them. She isn’t surprised when his hands bunch the dress she’s wearing, eager to touch her skin, to slide his palm down her spine. It makes her think of the yacht, a similar position, in his lap, a dress being drawn up and over her body. Only this time she can hear the rain outside, a storm blowing over.

She leans back, takes the dress off herself.

“Are you going to keep this one too?”

“I’d rather keep you.” He says as she hands it to him and a realisation dawns.

“My goodness, is that why you kept the other one, because you thought I might leave?”

“Or disappear.”

“I always thought it was some perverted sex thing.”

“That too, I masturbate with it at least once a week.”

She slaps his arm, but is kissing him again, undressing him, fingers moving and lifting his shirt out of the way.

“Are you aright there, like that?” she asks and there’s the readjustment and ridiculousness of taking his trousers off and propping pillows behind him as he leans against the sofa. “I might hurt your ribs,” she says as they try to find the right position, the right angle.

“Fuck my ribs, come here.”

She is naked in the firelight, standing before him like the goddess vision she is.

“I’m sorry I’m not of much use.” He whispers as she kneels and then sits in his lap, legs moving around his waist.

It is clumsy and they laugh together as they try to find a way to make it work and this is what she missed, not just sex, but that shared intimacy of being able to laugh and tease, not just practised perfunctory movements.

“I think I can make use of you.”

“Use me how you will, giving myself up to it.”

“Just wait until you’re fully healed…” she says and then she’s kissing his chest and he feels overwhelmed because her words suggest a time after this night, a future together.

He moves his hand between their bodies to touch her, rejoices when she throws her head back and groans his name because it’s been so long and she’s wanted his touch every single day since the moment he walked away.

When she lifts her face back to his, her hair falls forward and he slips his other hand into it, holding her face close to his, her mouth on his, as he rolls her body against his. In tune. Perfectly attuned.

She is the one to move her hand between them, take hold of his erection, slide her fingers along and around and down until he’s panting and she guides him inside her. It’s been too long and their bodies still as they come together again – all that memory of touch reawakening.

He remembers this joy, not just pleasure or release, but deep-rooted joy.

He wants to tell her he loves her again, whisper it in her ear as she makes love to him, but the nerves are still there, the caution. Take it slow. Take it steady.

Roman has known for a long time now that there will never be another. There can only ever be her like this. That despite the many things that shouldn’t work, they do, and whatever fucking obstacles that come up this is it, for life, just being her fucking lapdog if she’ll let him.

He’s embarrassed when he climaxes first. But she doesn’t seem to mind. His hand pulling her hair, the other one gripping her backside, lifting her body until she tightens around him and is moaning his name.

He doesn’t think the old castle has ever heard such a delicious sound.

When they’re lying together in front of the fire, the blanket from the couch over their bodies, she finds she is teary again and isn’t sure why. Roman in on his back, her body wrapped around his, facing the now dying embers but she can still feel the flicker of their heat on her skin.

“What?” he asks, kissing her head, rubbing her back, as she wipes the tears from her face. “Tell me.”

“I had this date,” she says and she’s so relieved to be telling him because she’d wanted to from the start. “It felt like cheating, but we’d been apart for months.”

“Okay.”

“Are you angry?”

“I’m not that kind of guy.”

“No, I knew that.” She bit down on her lip, feeling a mix of shame and stupidity rising in her stomach. “I’m old enough to know better but I went on this date because… because I needed to start again, I thought I was moving forward but the truth was I was going back. Finding that space I had known before you, polite dates with polite men, the kind of men it’s expected I’ll date and end up with. But it wasn’t the same because that thing we have, that I can’t label or pinpoint or define, it was never there with anyone else. Even though I might have wanted to cut the ties, how angry I was,”

She snuffled, wiping her face with the back of her hand, breathing deeply to clear her head. “I was so fucking angry with you because I couldn’t move past it. And I kept telling myself I had. And I let him have sex with me, and even when I was lying there and he was – I kept thinking of how much I loved you and how empty I felt. And after I was sneaking out, into this cab and I kept laughing because I thought Roman would find this hilarious, this old man he would say wasn’t _ringing my bells_ or some such shit but it wasn’t really funny, and I knew that too,” she lifted her head to look up at him, “it was so unbelievably heartbreakingly sad.”

He captured her mouth with his, pressed his hand flat against her back holding her as tight as he could. Because it was okay, he wasn’t the type to judge, as much as the thought of some other man touching her might sting, she was his, as he was hers.

“You know I never did anything with that girl, Lara.”

“I know.”

“Nor anyone else. Couldn’t even stand to get my dick sucked in the strip joints. Sat there like some slab of clay. Couldn’t even get hard. You’ve ruined me.”

She smiled, shifting her body so she could see his face better, “Or claimed you.”

“Or that.”

He brushed her hair back, “Like having someone who only sees what I do, or in the way I do. A secret language, does that make sense?”

She nodded, kissing his fingers as they passed over her face.

“No more silly acts,” she said firmly, “racing cars, shit like that, my heart can’t take it.”

“I knew you were worried.”

“Mm,” she brushed her fingertips over the stitches on his forehead. “It occurred to me that if Logan hadn’t sent me over when he did I might have found my way here anyway.”

“We have something to thank him for then,” he said softly.

“Maybe, I still think it was yet another test. And I failed, because I’m lying here naked with you.”

“I’m just too seductive.” He noted the apprehension on her face. “Let’s not think about him right now.”

“No. Not now.” She kisses him again, shifts her body so she’s leaning over him.

“Again?” He teases, holding her hips.

“I think so,” she smiles against his mouth. “You did admit you loved me.”

He sighed heavily, “Fuck, now you’ve got that over me.”

“Yes. And I intend to use it.”


	3. Chapter 3

Roman woke slowly, easily, eyes closed but brain alert. For those few minutes drifting as everything slipped back into place, his ears starting to pick up the slightest sounds around him, remembering where he was and why. The ache in his leg. The soft weight of Gerri’s head on his chest and her scent and the sound of her breathing.

He flexed his fingers against her back beneath the blanket. Slid his hand down to rest on her bare hip. His lips curled into a smile as he replayed the evening, the words he’d said to her, the ones she’d said to him. Girls had told him they loved him before, they had always seemed frivolous empty statements, usually when he’d gifted them something (or they wanted something). She’d said it once, in reply to him, and it had made him feel whole. Wanted. Safe.

He was stroking her hip with his thumb, enjoying the sensation of her skin moving back and forth, the silk of it, the way she sighed as she was waking. How quickly he’d forgotten the sounds she made when they were alone together in the night, the gentle murmurs in the back of her throat, the soft breathy texture of her voice.

“Did you ever think we’d get to this point again?” He says into her hair and she mumbles against his chest, still half asleep.

“Having sex on a lounge floor?” She breathed deeply, moved her tongue around her mouth. “God no.”

He chuckles at that, rubbing her back, kissing her hair.

“It’s so cold,” she complains and he pulls the blanket up over her shoulder, kissing her head. “The fire died. I would re-do it for you, but…”

“That’s another thing,” she is starting to move now, lean backwards on his arm as she fully wakes, “your bloody leg, twice in the night I knocked my shin on the pot.” She looked up at him.

“I’m sorry about that too, Gerri.” He brushed her hair back from her face. “Good morning.”

“Morning.”

“This is nice though, right, make-up sex.”

“That’s a big bloody argument to be having make-up sex over.”

“Yeah, well, it was pretty good sex too, despite my obvious limitations.”

“Quite.” She was sitting up, reaching for his shirt which hung nearby on the edge of the couch and putting it on.

“You wait until this thing is off, I’m gonna fuck you so good…”

“Yada, yada, promises, promises.”

“Don’t you be too dismissive of it; you’ve got seven weeks to go where you’ll be servicing me.”

“Servicing…” she is crawling to the fire, throwing on logs, “like a fucking car mechanic.”

“My god you’re sexy in that shirt, come back here.” He reaches for her, one hand on her leg, stroking down to her ankle.

“I’m trying to warm us up, pass the matches.”

He does so and she is quicker now at lighting the fire, she learns quickly, doesn’t forget.

She sits back on her haunches and looks at him, drawing the shirt together over her chest. “So, shall I go make coffee?”

“No, come back here, come, come…” he is beckoning her, pretending he’s pulling her on a tether. “That’s it, just settle in there like you were. Head right there… perfect.”

She is giggling throughout as he rearranges her, cuddles her up against him.

“See, that’s better, right.”

“Yes, that’s better.” She kissed his chest, rested her head there again. “You know, I’m sixty next year.”

“Okay, that kind of came out of nowhere.”

“Not nowhere no, it came out of the fact that every inch of my body aches from lying on this floor! Can we go to bed tonight?”

“If I can get up the stairs, otherwise it’s the couch…” he glanced at it, “it’s a big fucking couch, we could fit on there I think, I could fuck you on there.”

“I’m treated so lovingly.”

“Oh, I’m very sorry, I can make love to you on there my darling.”

“Fuck never use that word again, urgh!”

“Yeah, I think we can both accept that’s not our bag.”

“Not in the slightest. Baird used to use terms of endearment – sweetheart – things like that. It really wasn’t me.”

“But tramp and fucking sexy ass bitch are fine, right?”

She laughed, “Yes, insults in, sweet talk out.”

“Fair enough, that’s how we roll. So, _bitch_ …”

She lifted her head up, smiling, resting her chin on his chest so she could look at him. “Yes…”

“Can I come back to your bed now, I’ve missed it.”

“That depends, how badly have you missed it and will you behave when you’re in it?”

“I will take the time to answer that question in two parts. One, it’s been my constant companion in dreams for about four months now. Two, I can categorically confirm that there will only be very, _very_ bad, scandalous behaviour in your bed.” He was tickling her waist so she squirmed against him. “And I mean that in the strongest possible sense, like even more so than before.” She was on top of him now as he continued to tickle. “You thought it was pleasurable before, I’m gonna totally fucking change your pussy’s life.”

“Roman!” she gasped.

“This is not an empty threat, draw up legal documents, I’ll sign. My life’s work is now dedicated to it.”

“Is that what people mean when they say ‘pussy whipped’.”

“Must be, new sensation for me.”

“I think I’m going to enjoy having this kind of power,” she moved on top of him, “a first for me too, but you know, I’m more than happy to accept the role and do my best with it.”

“Well I mean you always try to make the best of a bad job.”

He was tickling her again, groping her, stroking her – touching her again was a gift and he didn’t want it to end.

They were laughing so much they missed the opening of the door; and his mouth was on hers when they heard a yelp of surprise.

“Oh sir, madam, I’m so sorry.”

Roman laughed as he took in the shocked expression of the housekeeper, but Gerri cringed, sinking down against him and hiding beneath the thick wool blanket.

“I’ll erm, check the other rooms first, I’m so sorry.”

“That’s alright, our fault,” Roman called out, but she had already left the room and closed the door.

“My reputation is well and truly stocked now,” he said, “seduced by an older woman on my mother’s lounge floor. Stuff of fucking teenage fantasies!”

“You wouldn’t have been able to manage me when you were a teenager. Oh god…” she pushed herself up, dragging the blanket from him and wrapping it around herself. “First time for everything I guess, I’ve never been caught in that situation before.”

“You know you’ve left me here naked.”

She stared down at him, “You look good though.”

He enjoyed her attentions, felt his entire being glowing with happiness.

“I never thought I’d get this back.” He said.

“Well, I’m too kind, clearly.” She held her hand out, “Come on, let’s put some clothes on you. I might ask the housekeeper to help me get you upstairs for a shower, so you better at least have covered your little dick.”

“It didn’t seem to bother you.”

“It’s not always the size that matters now, is it.” She was pulling his t-shirt over his head. “It’s how you use it.”

“Fuck the housekeeper, let’s get back at it.” His hands are on her hips, yanking her body into his.

“Behave,” but she kissed him anyway. “You can take me out to lunch.”

“And how?”

“Well, we can get the car, didn’t you say there was a pub?”

“Mm, and they do Sunday roasts,” he was kissing her chest now as she tried to dress him, “it’s a bit on the lacklustre side, should be knocked down and rebuilt.”

“I can cope if poor little rich boy can. Now, help me put your underwear on, then a shower, I’ll do my emails, phone calls, whatever, then lunch.”

“Gerri,” he said staring at her face as she fussed. “Do you know what?”

“What?”

“Still love you.”

The slightest smile, “Still?” He nodded. “Good. I should fucking think so.”

*

Sunday lunch and the pub was busy with regulars but they managed to find a table by a window. She had ordered at the bar - two roasts, wine for her, a local ale for him (a one-off treat she'd told him whilst he was still on medication). And they had settled down relatively unnoticed. Just another couple out on another Sunday. Apart from their accents, and the obvious wealth of their appearance - her highly styled hair, the cashmere throw; that arrogant charm that oozed out of him after a lifetime with money.

“You know now we’re back together,” he starts.

“Back together? Are we?” She teases.

“We best be, I don’t confess my soul to just anyone.”

“Okay, okay. Carry on then. Now we’re back together…”

“…I can text you on a 24-hour running period, yes?”

“I should hope so. Though I might not always reply.”

“And I can talk filth about your hair?”

“A-ha.”

“And refer to you as my hot-ass girlfriend?”

She rolled her eyes, “If you must. You know I’m incredibly moved that these are the things that matter to you, the real important, crucial elements of our relationship.”

He smirked, “Well, I fear I’ve become pathetic, need to restore my reputation.”

“In what regard?”

“Last night. The things I said.”

She tilted her head to one side, rested her chin on her hand. “Umm.”

“Was a bit, you know, fucking, bullshitting hearts and flowers shit.”

“You were bullshitting me?” She says, eyebrows raised.

“No, nooo…” both of his hands reach across the table and take hold of hers where it rested on the table. “It was all real. But made me feel a bit…”

“Emasculated?” She offered, “Well, I mean, have a moment now, restore your masculinity.”

“Fuck the bollocks of that shit-wank-midget-pond-skimmer of a man who fucked you badly. I hope his balls dry up and his dick falls off.”

She nodded, lips pursed, “Better?”

“Some restoration, yeah.”

“Good. Not so loud in future though, hey, I’m not sure these fine Sunday pub dwellers want to hear some rich kid going off.”

“Tosser.” He mumbled then smiled at her. “Out of my system. We can be adults again now.”

“ _We_?” She laughed at that. “You know, it might take me a while to, I’m not saying I don’t want this, because I really do. What I’m saying is it might take me a while to get back to where we were.”

“Okay.”

“I know for you it happens instantly,” she clicked her fingers, “but you hurt me.”

He feels himself shrink inside at that.

“And I had taken steps to putting myself out there, us, I mean Cyd for fuck’s sake talking about it with me and then the shame of being dumped so quickly.” She shrugged. “It might just take me a little longer, to get back there.”

“Okay, I understand that. Earn your trust again, I get that. Not gonna tell me what to text this time if it ends?”

“Fuck Roman,” she couldn’t help but laugh, “you really are piss-poor at reading things. That’s such a sore subject.”

“What? It was a joke!”

“It’s not funny.”

“But you’re laughing.”

“I’m laughing at the fact you think that would be funny and it so isn’t. Oh god,” she wiped her eyes, reached to squeeze his hands, “I’ve got my work cut out.”

He shrugged, a youthful expression on his face. “I’m going to apologise in advance for the many fuck-ups that are bound to come in the future.”

“Alright, try not to make too many though, I mean, make sure they’re things I can fix.”

“You can fix anything.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“I am sorry, you know, if I haven’t made that clear, about hurting you. I will try not to hurt you again.”

“I’m sure we’ll hurt each other many times over in the years to come.”

“We will?”

“That’s life, Rome, that’s relationships. I’ll lose my temper with you over clambering on my furniture. You’ll find my Sunday routine boring. We’ll work late nights and let each other down at some point and shout at each other and throw insults back and forth but…”

“But, I’ll still love you.”

She smiled softly, “Yes. And we’ll find a way through it. I hope.”

“Remind me of this sometimes, yes. Because I’ll forget, when it’s one of those bad moments and you’re screaming at me, I’ll want to walk because it’s the easier option.”

“I’ll remind you of this past Christmas, shall I?”

“Yeah, being without you. Never missed anyone before. I usually just move onto the next one.”

“I’m glad I had such an impact.”

He bent his head, growling as he kissed her fingers and she could see the family on the neighbouring table watching them.

“Stop it. People are watching.” But she was smiling too.

“Fuck dinner, let’s go home again, do stuff to each other.”

“Later.”

He was turning her hands over, kissing her palms. “How many times I day can I say ‘I love you’ without coming across as some stalker type?”

“It depends on the context,” she sighed, “you know I might not say it as often. Doesn’t mean I don’t feel it.”

“Yeah, I know.” Because as limited as he might have seemed with human behaviour, he did know her, and he could read her now. “Context?”

“Well, I mean if we’re in bed I might say it more often,” she whispered, trying to hide her face from the woman on the next table who couldn’t help but keep glancing at her. She wondered if her current joyful state shone out of her. “Birthdays, shit like that.”

“Three times a day – morning, noon, night.”

“For you,” she laughed, “You can’t use it as a get out of jail free card – you do something stupid, _I love you_ doesn’t excuse it.”

“You’re too smart for that.”

“Allegedly. You affect me though…” she stopped when she saw a waiter approaching with their lunch and she sat back, taking her hands from his, taking a sip of her red wine.

“What shall we do for the rest of the day?” She asks, slicing into her roast beef.

“Buy some diamonds or something,” he says. “So, they’re waiting for you when we get home.”

“Casual afternoon activity.”

“Obviously. Buy a zoo in your name, destroy somebody’s hopes and dreams. What do you fancy?”

“I mean all perfectly valid options; I quite like the idea of exploring the castle whilst Caroline’s not there.”

“Shit yes, Shiv and I had a theory there were whips and chains in a room somewhere. Like some Fifty Shades fucked up kinky shit. Let’s find them and play.”

“You can hardly walk but I’m going to chain you up anyway and have my wicked way with you?”

“Baby, you turn me on!”

She laughed full-hearted at that, “Oh god, I was thinking you know, culture, maybe some antiques, bit of art.”

“You fancy stealing something, some antique. Hide it in your suitcase?”

“Would she notice?”

“Would she bollocks. Maybe that’s what we can do next year.”

She shook her head, had almost forgotten how quickly he went from one thing to the next, brain jutting about like some bumper car at a carnival. She often felt like she had cobwebs in hers when in conversation with him.

“For?”

“Your sixtieth. Fifty Shades party.”

“Hell no!”

“Come on, it’d be fun.”

“People think I’m classy, I’d rather keep it that way. Not have them thinking I’m some kinky witch.”

“I think they probably already think that. It’s the way you walk.” He teased.

“Fuck off.”

“ _Kinky witch_ ,” he said lowly.

“Good lord,” she leant forward a little, “perhaps we should change topic, we might get talked about.”

“We are anyway. So, what do you fancy doing?”

“For my sixtieth. Jesus, I don’t want to think. Some dinner I guess.” She shrugged.

“That’s boring as shit.”

“Gee thanks.”

“No, I mean you’re fucking amazing, really, you should have some massive party and really go to town, big celebration. Cover yourself in diamonds. Shine.”

“Roman,” she bit on her lip as she watched him, this happiness exuding out of him.

“It’s true. I’d come.”

“I would hope so. I would hope you’d be co-host.”

“Well, I didn’t want to be presumptuous. Trying to, you know, keep things in check, not be too much.”

She smiled, “Oh you’re doing so well with that laid back, non-energetic thing. Rockstar.”

“Tramp.” He smiled in return. “Can’t believe I’ve got you back.” He suddenly said.

“Did you think you wouldn’t?”

“Kinda dreamed of it, some fantastical event bringing us back together and you realising you couldn’t live without me. Obviously. That you’d come crawling and begging me to reconsider.”

“Fat fucking chance of that happening,” she exclaimed, then covered her mouth when a child on a nearby table glanced sharply at her grinning.

He smirked, “Watch yourself, Geraldine.”

“You’re the only person on earth who I let get away with using that name.” She closed her eyes, “Okay, pull myself together, be sensible.” She could feel him grinning at her, felt herself getting swept away by him all over again. “Life seems to move slower here on a Sunday.”

“New York city it ain’t.” He took a long drink of his beer, a local brew he was quite getting used to the taste of.

“Bit different from my usual Sundays.”

“Tell me your usual Sundays.”

“No, why? They’re dull.”

“Because I want to know everything. I’m a nosey fucker.”

“Language,” she mouthed at him. “Hmm, breakfast with someone, a friend – before you start. A walk, a workout, something like that. Afternoon coffee and the Sunday papers and then work and a bath and you…” she said softly, “thinking about you, texting you, hoping you might want to see me and want to come over.”

“You should’ve just started with that.”

“I didn’t want to come across as desperate.”

“I’ve missed our Sunday nights. Everything.”

“Me too.”

“Am I allowed to stay over? Or is that on hiatus for the moment? Until you feel more… comfortable…?”

“We’ll see,” she said. Though she already knew the answer was often likely to be yes, because when he was there in her apartment, whether it was post-date sex or just him lounging on her furniture as she worked or called friends or whatever she had to do – she didn’t want him to leave.

He brought colour to her world. Light.

“Missed this too,” he said, “long meandering going nowhere conversations about fuck all or everything all at once.”

“Yes.”

“Like losing a limb, not having you to talk to.”

She raised her eyebrow, “Like breaking a leg?”

“Hurt more.” He said.

“I like this you, honest you.”

“Bit like being in a fucking confessional.”

“It’ll pass, don’t worry.” She assured him.

*

He’s waiting at the bar when she goes to the bathroom after lunch, turning his phone back and forth in his hand and the man next to him is paying his bill when he turns to him, waiting for his receipt.

“She’s very beautiful,” he says, “the lady you’re with.”

He’s caught out by this, it never really occurs to him to pay attention to others around him, especially when with her, caught up in this bubble with her.

“You’re Roman Roy, aren’t you? From the er thingy… up the road, your mother is Lady Collingwood.”

“Er yeah,” Roman thinks enough to hold his hand out and shake the man’s, though previously this behaviour would have seemed alien to him. “Yeah, she is.”

“My wife works on the estate in the summer, you know when you open the castle up to visitors.”

He’d forgotten about that, his mother had mentioned it was something they were doing with half of the estate, some restoration project thing, a way to get the funds.

“You er, crashed that yellow car, the other day.” He indicated his leg.

“Lamborghini,” Roman tried to look sorry over it. “Bit of a mess. It’ll heal though.”

“Bad roads round here. She your girlfriend then, the er…”

“Yes,” Roman said quickly, “flew over to get me out of hospital.”

The man nodded, “Good to see you on the mend.”

“Thanks man, have a good day.”

“And you.”

He turned back to the bar, it still surprised him when members of the public (the norms he would have called them) interacted with him. There was a time he would have been flippant and rude and walked away. But there was something reassuring about the easy way he had mentioned Gerri as his girlfriend, really, he thought, real people didn’t give that much of a shit about it. They were just another couple, you could gossip and bitch about how weird it was and how it’s not natural, or you could just shut the fuck up and let people be happy.

On the bar was a jar with a scrappy looking white label hanging from it, he peeled back the yellowing corner, ‘Funds Needed for the Loos!’ was scrawled in black marker.

“Hey, what’s this?” Roman asked the young girl working there.

“Oh it’s been there forever, the owner wants to do up the toilets, you know, they’re a bit old and…” she pulled a face. “It’s an old place.”

It was; low-hanging wooden beams, it needed a renovation throughout, a paint job for a start. New tables, chairs, carpets. Brightening up.

Gerri came out, rubbing sanitiser into her hands as she approached him, “Ready to go?” She smiled.

“Yeah. Just a sec.”

“How much to do them?” He asked the girl.

She shrugged, clicked the chewing gum in her mouth. “Ten grand, maybe, I don’t know. What we got in there?”

Roman spotted maybe a couple of hundred, if that.

He opened his jacket pocket and found his cheque book, opening it and scribbling.

“What’s the owner’s name?”

“Jeffery Gregg.”

“Right,” he said, “here. Give him this. Contribution to the renovations. Tell him the local ale is good. Keep it.”

Gerri leaned over his arm to read it – a hundred thousand pounds. She caught his hand in hers as they left the pub.

“That was very kind of you.”

“Don’t fucking tell anyone.”

She laughed, helping into the car.

“You’re in a good mood.” She observed.

“No point having money if you can’t make grand gestures. Make yourself look good. Good publicity, you’d say that, right.”

“Mmm,” she kissed him, she knew it wasn’t down to the look of it at all. “This is an entirely new side to the Roman I know.”

He flicked his eyes skyward, “Fucking love, hey.”

“What love can do, that dares love attempt,” she said. “And no, that’s not Electric Circus.”

"Fuck you!"

*

In the afternoon they lay on the sofa, with the late spring light coming in through the window. She’d wanted to sit in the armchair and leave him to rest and sleep, but he wouldn’t, couldn’t, stand not to be near her. It was like healing with her, healing his heart as well as his body.

So, she’d sat propped up on the couch with him lying next to her, his head on her chest as he dozed, in and out of sleep, and she read.

When he turned his neck and groaned she closed her book, turned the page to mark her place.

“You okay?”

“Mm-hmm. Neck aches.”

“It’s the angle,” she dropped her hand to his shoulder, gently rubbed the knot there, “I told you not to sleep like that.”

“Don’t chastise when I’m injured,” he turned slightly, trying to shift the weight of his leg. “Ahh, I fucking hate this bastard thing.”

She was silent, knew enough about him to let him have his moment of complaint.

“If they’d chopped the fucker off it wouldn’t cause me as much bother.”

He was half sat now, both hands on his leg as he lifted and moved it and then she yelped.

“That’s my knee,” she rubbed at the spot where he’d trapped her skin.

“Sorry.” He sagged back down.

“What are you trying to do?”

“Bury my face in your chest. Smother myself.”

“Please don’t,” she patted his head, her other hand still rubbing her knee. “Why don’t you go masturbate in the bathroom, get your frustrations out, then come back in as a normal person again.”

He snorted, “I don’t even have the energy for that. Unless you wanna help?”

“Not particularly,” she squeezed his shoulder. “You want a drink, anything?”

“Not as much as I want you to stay right there. Am I hurting you?” he snuggled against her.

“No…” he shifted his weight, pressed into her belly. “Ow, yes. Don’t lay like that.”

“Oh to be comfortably enclosed in your bed.” He lamented.

“You’d still have the leg.”

He laughed, “A metaphorical log between us,” he said, looking up at her as she rolled her eyes, “you trying to grind yourself against me to get your own way and the only thing you can rub against is my cold, hard pot.”

“As if I would ever need to grind to get my own way?”

“Sure, course, cause you snap your fingers and I agree anyhow?”

“A-ha, something like that.” She picked her book up from where she’d left it on the back of the sofa and moved it to the coffee table. “What’s the leg a metaphor for, anyhow, your father perhaps…?”

He groaned again, his face on her breasts. “Don’t go there.”

“We have to talk about it, at some point, you know.”

He drums his fingers against her arm, the warmth of her body like some form of therapy. She was using that voice again, that soft lilting thing, a half-whisper, he was sure she knew what it did to him, crawling into his brain and sparking every nerve, firing along his blood vessels right down to his groin.

“We both know him; he doesn’t take well to being undermined. Or ignored.” She said, and that ended any erotic thoughts he might have been having.

“Yeah, I know.”

She moved her hand to his chin, lifting his face up, making him look at her. “Does it make you, I mean, I don’t want to assume, but...”

“Fucking anxious, yeah, course. But determined too. Shit, I’m almost thirty-nine years old. Bout time I grew my own pair of balls and took on the old bull, right.”

“You do have a pair of balls,” she said lightly, tapping his nose with her index finger, “I’ve seen them. On more than one occasion. And they work.”

He chuckled at that, kissing her wrist – was it a seduction technique? Perhaps. A way to improve his confidence? More likely.

“You know, the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life is what I did to you. And that was down to him. I can be a fucking evil little git.”

“Yes. I’ve seen. I know.”

It didn’t matter, it seemed nothing he could do could stop her feeling the way she did about him. That terrified her in its own way. She wondered if he even knew how much he held over her. He liked to think she was the one with the power to direct his soul. To her, it was he who held hers. It was he who held all the cards in this – if he got bored, if he wanted to move on, he could and she would let him. But their time apart had taught her that she would be the one left suffering, because there would be no other man now, for as long as she had left on the earth. Things had shifted and changed in her and though life would go on – her work, her friends – she’d never love like this ( _hadn’t before),_ would never feel as absolutely encased in euphoria as she did than when he was making love to her. It made her vulnerable. But by god it made her strong too.

“I don’t think I can erase that. But I want to at least try to be a bit more worthy of life.”

She is silent at that, listening to him, because wisdom comes with age and she knows when someone has to work through things themselves and find the answer.

“If this comes down to, you know, if when I see him and it’s the same choice – you or Waystar – then I’m out, you know that.”

“Ha, I think if you’re out then I’m definitely out.” She’s thought about that on and off since the previous night, that her time at Waystar might be reaching an end when Logan finds out about this. She can remember sitting in that office with him bargaining for her position, but more importantly, for Roman’s.

She sighed, her hand sliding down his bare arm. “But I can live with that, I think I’ve come to terms with it. I have enough, savings, property, investments. I could retire now. I don’t want to, but I could. But you have your shares, you’re on the board, you can’t just be… disappear, he can’t just make you disappear. You’ve just got to hold on, stand your ground. You and Kendall.”

This was the first time she’d admitted this to him and it felt something of an imposition to cross that line. “You two are the future of the company, when he’s gone, and I know he doesn’t want to face that because none of us want to face our own mortality. But the two of you can take it forward, the company. You’re more than capable. Trust in that.”

“Thank you.”

“The other option is the dangerous one,” she said lowly, unsure as to how he would respond to it.

“That you move against him, that we put something together. But that’s…”

“A final resort,” he offered, and she nodded. But it was there, that promise between them now that whatever they came up against they faced it as a partnership, a pair, they would support and back-up the other over anyone else. Whether it was concerned with work or not.

“I just don’t want to be the cause,” she said softly, turning her head to one side, her mouth brushing the top of his head. “You might resent me for it.”

“No.”

“You might. If you are forced out, if you have to find something else. Would I be enough then for you? To fill the gap? Am I enough?”

“Yes,” he kissed her chest, held her tighter. “You bring me peace. That’s fulfilment, isn’t it?”

“I guess so.”

She closed her eyes, “If I doze off don’t let me sleep too late, otherwise I’ll be all messed up tomorrow and I need to be alert.”

“Alright.”

Silence then between them, two people who know each other well enough to be comfortable with that. Her drifting into a light sleep, he left alone with his thoughts, running through imaginary conversations he would have with his father.

Placing himself there in his father’s office, trying not to see himself still as a nine-year-old being bollocked for doing something wrong, beaten for breaking an antique vase.

But as the man he was now.

And standing there, recounting the words he would use in his mind, ‘I love her, Dad, I’m not going to walk away from her.’ He should have said it the first time, he had to find a way to say it this time.

Even if he lost, even if he was out, he’d rather have the sadness over that than be without her. But Christ, he hoped that wouldn’t be the case. He wanted both. As selfish as he always was, he wanted everything to go the way of Roman Roy.

*

She’s in business mode come Monday morning; he thinks this as he watches her walk from the house to the car – bag hanging from her arm, phone at her ear, back in the smart fitted black dress and heels. Hair up. He’d have preferred it down. She slides into the back of the car, hardly looks at him as she continues her conversation, barking out orders to whichever poor sap is on the other end of the line, signalling with her other hand for the driver to get going.

As they pull out of the gravel drive he leans across her knee, waves a forlorn goodbye to the castle and she makes eye contact with him then, gives him a lopsided smile, before pushing on his shoulder, indicating for him to sit back.

It’ll be a long day. Back in role.

A far cry from the previous evening, when she’d been naked in his lap on that couch (he’ll never be able to look at it the same again when he visits), slowly rolling back and forth on his erection, stroking him, tenderly, passionately, her hands balanced on the arm of the sofa for support. Her hair in his face, her breasts pushed against him, licking and suckling her nipples, until she’s groaning his name. And those words come so easy in the dark, the _I love yous_ , the confessions, whispered words of need and want. Telling her she’s beautiful. The ache in her voice when she’s close to climaxing and she repeats how much she’s missed him.

He’s not sure which bit of the memory sticks with him more – the intensity of his orgasm or the words she’d breathed by his ear. He can’t recall half of what he’d said to her, but if she told him that morning that he’d pledged to give her half his kingdom, he’d believe her.

They’d slept there, cuddled up on the couch, her on her side, her back to the fire. He remembers kissing long into the night, stroking her skin, drifting to sleep and then waking to kiss her all over again. The sound of her giggling in delight when his mouth touches that softest spot at the base of her neck, how occasionally he caught the glint of her eyes in the darkness. It made it all the more intense, when she was sucking on his fingers and he could feel the thick fullness of her bottom lip on the pad of his thumb. To feel, not to see.

And then it was morning. And he woke up alone. She was already dressed and in the kitchen, her bag packed and ready to go. He’d started to wonder if there were any castles near home he could buy, or land, he could build one in her honour, plant flowers spelling out her name in the grounds. He is chuckling over this when she puts the phone down and turns her attention to him.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. Thinking of buying a castle.”

“Okay, don’t commit until I’ve checked it for damp.” She says, quickly glancing as a message comes through. “Could you pull through a drive-thru,” she says to the driver, “for coffee on the way to the station?”

“Yes ma’am.”

Roman smirks at that. “And he’s doing it genuinely, I’d say that to take the piss.”

“I quite like it, ma’am, makes me sound powerful.” She stretches her legs, “you set for today?”

“I’m guessing you’ve got every base covered so I feel safe in your hands.”

“Nauseating.” She teases, but then her phone rings again and she answers and he listens to her berating a member of staff – he wonders if it’s the same one as before – for being tediously inefficient and poor at their job. She has still not forgiven the balls up with the hotel and somebody is clearly going to pay.

Her right hand is on the seat between them and she’s wearing one of her huge oblong rings that she likes so much, and he entertains himself for a while by playing with that, running his finger around the shape of it. Twisting it back and forth on her finger. She doesn’t seem to mind; she even lifts her hand at one point when he turns it over so the jewel is underneath. She knows he’ll bore soon enough, and he does, taking out his phone instead and flicking through his emails.

“You looking forward to getting back to your apartment?” She asks when she’s ended her call.

“I guess, hoping whomever I’m seeing tomorrow gives me some fucking whack-ass drugs for this thing that are ten times the strength of what I’ve got at the moment.”

“For Christ’s sake don’t get hooked on painkillers, last thing I need is hanging you out for a dry spell.” She’s glancing out of the window as they pull off the main road and into a queue for Starbucks; it’s Monday morning after all.

“I’ll need someone to take care of me.”

“That’s all been taken care of, there’s a team of nurses ready to go.”

“I didn’t mean that.” He’s fiddling with her ring again and she watches him this time, at how his young slender fingers look against hers.

“Oh?”

“Tonight, where you gonna be?”

“My apartment, I cancelled my dinner with friends, I wasn’t sure what time we’d get in. Why?”

“Then I wanna be there too.” He says lowly, embarrassed in front of the driver.

She sighs, “Roman…” and then they’re at the front of the queue and she’s leaning forward to place their order and he’s looking away because he feels ridiculous and immature for saying it.

“Forget it,” he says, when she’s still ordering, and she snaps him a look.

“Let’s not talk about it here,” she says quietly, because talking in front of her own driver in New York is one thing, talking about things in front of a stranger who has been hired for a one-off job is quite another.

But it’s bothered him, clearly, and that niggles away at her for the rest of the morning as she tries to sort things in her own head before she gives him a measured response.

The legal side of proceedings are somewhat of a mystery to him, and he lets her handle all that, trusts in her enough that when she’s happy and says ‘sign’ he does so without concern. His expertise lay in the charm offensive, and that he can do.

When they arrive at the farmhouse just after lunch he is surprised that he can remember vividly the twists and turns before he lost control. He’s following the route in his mind as they drive and he wonders if Gerri is doing the same.

The house comes into view and he cranes his neck to see the wall he went through, and just as he does he feels Gerri grab his hand on the seat and squeeze his fingers, and then he knows she’s followed it too.

“Christ, I didn’t realise I’d made such a mess.” He says as they pull up the drive and the extent of the damage to the house can be seen. “Really did a number on their lounge.”

Scaffolding has already gone up and there appears to be a team of workers already on site, which Gerri is glad of, she figures the quicker the mess is cleaned up and fixed, the quicker it’ll be forgotten.

“Okay, here goes,” he says, unclipping his belt, and she leans round then, still holding his hand, and kisses him firmly on the mouth.

“Don’t be so fucking stupid again!” She snaps, and he’s laughing as she gets out of the car because she’s so fierce when she wants to be, and all that care hidden away behind her snappish tone and practicality.

“Mr and Mrs Talbot,” she says, holding her hand out to them. “I’m Gerri Kellman, I work for the Waystar corporation, thank you so much for agreeing to see Mr Roy.”

She is sweetness personified as she talks to them, waiting for Roman to be helped from the car by the driver. He puts on a good show, extra slow on the crutches as he makes his way around to them, even she is impressed.

They are led inside, and she is reminded of her childhood, a decent sized home by most standards, but nothing even remotely close to the luxury they both live in. The millionaire lifestyle that keeps them apart from the realities of the rest of the world. The home is full, busy, children’s belongings scattered about, schoolbooks, boots and coats in the hallway.

“We of course want to try and help in any way we can.” She is saying as they sit at the kitchen table, addressing the man as he sits across from her and Roman.

She lets Roman take over, he’s good at that, getting people to like him, and she can sit back and simply listen and offer advice if needed.

“Would you like me to help?” She asks as Mrs Talbot makes tea.

“Oh no, course not, won’t be a second.”

She notes the tiredness in the woman’s face, recognises it well from when she was working with young children at home, and she had help! She is pale, too thin, but attractive beneath that. A fleeting thought passes, a wonder of what her own life might had been had she not been so pushy and pernicious as a teenager, so intent on doing well and climbing the social ladder. College had been her escape, law her tool, but it was her mind, her hard work, her perseverance that had gotten her here.

“I can’t express highly enough how sorry I am,” she hears Roman saying. “I sincerely mean that. It was a really selfish thing to do, test driving the car, and of course I can find multiple things to excuse my actions but the bottom line is I was driving, I lost control and I’ve damaged your property. For that I want to apologise.”

“We’re thankful for how quickly they’ve got going like,” Mr. Talbot says, he seems a little older than his wife, but he’s got a kindly ruddy face, red skin, calloused fingers from working outdoors.

“I know that Ms. Kellman has already been in contact regarding your home and the renovations, and I’m glad they’ve already begun. But we really want to try and do more.”

They hadn’t discussed this, she glanced sideways at him, chewing her lip.

“I know there’s going to be an extension, an area for your children, things like that and we’re glad to help. That all sounds really cool. But I would like to really apologise, set up a scholarship fund or something for your children. We can do that, can’t we, Gerri?”

He looked at her for the first time.

“Well, yes, of course, we can certainly look into it.”

“I’d like someone to get onto that straight away, I realise it must be traumatic for them too. Are they in school now?” He sounded very professional, very mature.

“Yes,” Mrs. Talbot nodded.

“I don’t understand,” her husband said, “how would this scholar-thing work?”

“Well, I think what Mr. Roy is referring to is perhaps putting some money aside so that when the time comes if your children wish to pursue higher level education it would be there for them to access.”

“For, like university or something?” Mrs. Talbot said. “None of us in the family have ever been.”

“Well it’s –,” Gerri started but she overlapped with Roman so stopped and let him speak.

“It would be there for if they wanted to take that option.” He said. “And if not then it could be used to set up their own business, or buy a house or something.”

“We can clarify all those details,” Gerri quickly said before Roman could head down a very long path; she didn’t want the family to be drawing from him for life like some kind of metaphorical ATM.

“Would you like some cake?” Mrs. Talbot asked and, to Gerri’s surprise, Roman not only had a slice but he ate every bite.

“She makes the best Victoria sandwich,” Mr. Talbot said. “Wins the village show every year.”

“She can’t cook,” Roman said through a mouthful of crumbs, jerking his thumb at Gerri, “but she can boil an egg.”

She wasn’t sure if she was annoyed or not by that comment, it felt a bit like being a prize cow and being compared around the table. She half expected a pissing contest to follow.

“I didn’t realise you two were… we thought she was just the lawyer or something,” Mrs. Talbot said.

“I am,” Gerri said quickly and Roman didn’t interrupt.

They spent an hour or so with them, and by the time their car left the village and headed back towards the A40 and Heathrow, Roman’s charming ways had bandaged any potential damage caused by his reckless driving.

*

“I didn’t realise we were doing that?” She said once they were in the air.

“Which bit?” He asked, he was resting on one of the sofas, his leg elevated, and he’d planned to sleep.

“Comparing our women,” she said, she was moving about the cabin, taking off her jacket, helping herself to coffee.

“Did I?”

“I think the comment was ‘she can’t cook’.”

“Well you can’t, it wasn’t a lie. Besides, I thought it was fucking cute.” He yawned, it was the first day since the accident where he hadn’t had an afternoon nap.

“How?”

“Like being one of them, presenting my woman,” he teased.

“Fuck off,” she threw him a look. “Do you want a drink?”

“No, I feel nauseous actually, I think it’s the travel and the medication.”

She moved over to him, rested her hand on his forehead. “Do you want me to get you anything for that?”

“I might just sleep. You’ll be here when I wake up?”

“Well, unless we land and I sod off and leave you, yes, I’ll be here.”

He took hold of her hand, his eyes closed, “Missed being alone with you today.”

“We’re alone now,” she perched on the edge of the adjoining sofa, brushed her hand over his hair. “I’m glad we’re going home,” she said. “And the other thing… I wasn’t being difficult.”

“What other thing? You mean staying over? Forget it.”

She pursed her lips, watching his face as he relaxed. “I don’t mean no, not ever, I just mean not every night. I need time to build back up to that.”

“It’s alright, I get it. I’m a jerk, I gotta earn your trust back.”

“No, don’t make it sound like that. Not a trial. Not a competition.” She kissed his head. “The nurses will take better care of you anyhow.”

“Too right they fucking will, did you get the stereotyped porn looking ones, like I asked for?”

“Yes. Every single one.” She rolled her eyes.

“I’m going to see Dad tomorrow,” he whispered, his voice heavy with sleep.

“Okay.”

“I’d like you to come, if you think that’s appropriate. Talk it through with him together. If… you can…”

“Of course.”

She held his hand until he was asleep and then covered him with a blanket before moving to a table to work.

She could have slept too but there were things to catch up on after four days away. And then facing Logan, that meant coming up with some form of defence, being prepared – it was a strategy that worked well in every aspect of her life apart from her dealings with the Roy men.

She had been prepared to help Roman out in Japan, save his skin; had been prepared to give him business advice, help him improve himself; she’d even been prepared to indulge his kinky phone calls because he needed that release.

She had not been prepared for falling in love. And now, her career was on the line because of it.


End file.
